“There's been a Change” Estelle said.

 Not that she had really needed to say it. They had all felt it after they re-entered the hallway from that grotesque section of the perimeter building they had so briefly entered.

“What's happened?” Carol asked.

 “We get taken forward in time every now and again,” Estelle explained. “We never know how far forward, but it's usually for a reason.”

 “Bit hard to see one right now,” Barkworth said as he looked around. “A little more dust around perhaps – and is that a cobweb?”

 Just as he noticed that the round entrance door to the outside had been replaced by a pair of solid-looking self-opening doors, they sprung open and a horde of what looked like young warriors from both sexes poured through. Obviously freezing, they had quickly thrown on over-gowns over their skimpy brightly-colored sports gear. Most of the team, which included Central or South Americans as well as various Pacific peoples as before, were carrying what looked like hockey sticks, These however had cupped ends as if for catching balls instead of hitting them. Barkworth vaguely remembered something about an ancient middle-American game that used sticks like those.

 Carol instinctively shrank back as they rushed past them.

 “It's OK Carol, they can't see us. We're completely invisible to them.” Estelle reassured her.

 “Probably wouldn't notice us even if we weren't,” Barkworth laughed. “You know, it might be an idea if we popped through those outside doors ourselves just for a minute or two, could get a better idea of what's just happened.”

As before the automatic door couldn't sense their presence. Carol was a little nervous about trying to pass through what looked like the same hard plastic-like substance so much of the new Aotere appeared to be made of. Barkworth wondered if this material was even better than the still apparently undiscovered metals.

 “Our transparency is selective,” Barkworth explained to her. “We can apparently pass through anything except whatever we stand on; see but not be seen. Even fly – we'll see if you can too later on.”

 When they did finally coax her through, they were instantly greeted with huge gusts of windblown rain mixed in with salt spray. A large wave swept in and surged up onto the grassy surface in front of them. Visibility was virtually nil.

 “Refreshing...” Estelle said drily as it all blew straight through them and they felt nothing of what Barkworth suspected would be biting cold. The Aotere was almost certainly way south of where it  had, for he and Estelle at least, so recently been. The reason for the new raft was now obvious: it could sail all the oceans of the world without freezing its passengers.

 Yet standing there did feel strangely refreshing compared to what they had so recently witnessed. They had continued on though that extraordinary hydroponic jungle  while Barkworth described another ahead-of-its time culture he had visited. But this one was that very rare exception in that it wasn't fictional: Far Pranrana. He told of its bizarre ending, which naturally prompted both women to wonder if the Aotere – or Atlantis, as Carol insisted on calling it - might eventually meet a similar fate.

But when they had come to the next radial corridor and crossed it for a brief look into the next vast chamber, such thoughts quickly evaporated. It was overrun with chickens, countless thousands of them, pecking into what looked like a more natural version of the grass that covered the decking outside. But they weren't on their own; hundreds of pigs also rooted around and, to Barkworth's amazement, what looked like large guinea pigs, which he suspected might have been agouti. In the distance a few rheas wandered aimlessly.

 But it wasn't entirely unnatural. A small pond was visible a few meters away, from which a meandering stream ran into the distance. Several diminutive trees, many bearing fruit, were dotted randomly around, along with groups of smaller flowered plants. A wizened old woman stood amongst one such group apparently weeding them.

The ceiling however, perhaps three meters above the 'ground', didn't entirely fit the  bucolic image. Rows of sunlamps alternated with what looked like water sprinklers. Barkworth wondered if another floor above it supported a similar protein bounty.

 “Yuk..!” Carol said loudly.

 “Most pre-Contact worlds have far worse,” he reminded her. “All the same, I really don't think we need to make our way through it. Time to explore that human farm on the middle raft...”

 
And that's where they were now headed, having passed out through the vast glass double doors at the far end of the corridor. These gave out onto a flag-stoned promenade just a few meters wide extending round the outer raft's inner perimeter. The balustrade was carved in what looked to Barkworth's eye like Celtic figures of men with very long intertwined beards. But then he remembered seeing something similar in a remote Kanak settlement on the island of New Caledonia, which had developed a reputation for entertaining off-world visitors with their slightly spurious `indigenous foods and cultural activities'.

 But their immediate surroundings were about all they could see. Though they were standing in the lee side of that vast circular `gallery' as they now thought of it, the view out towards the rest of the Aotere was all but rained out. They saw a bench set into the wall behind them, but didn't really see any point in sitting in it.

 “Besides,” as Barkworth laughed, “we can't be sure we wouldn't pass right through it and find ourselves sprawling on the deck below. - Though, come to think of it, we've never actually tried sitting, have we Estelle?”

 He went up to the bench but, as he half-expected, his hand passed right through it.

 “No rest for the wicked,” Carol laughed. “ - What about flying for the wicked? How do I – whoo..!”

She promptly soared into the air.

 “Careful, Carol. There's no nice friendly Gravitex Harness to keep you on the straight and level and tell you where you are.”

 But he knew his words were lost to her as she disappeared into the rain and mist above.

 “Carol..!” Estelle shouted.

 “It's alright,” Carol laughed as she descended to float just over the parapet in front of them. “I realized soon as I saw the raft disappear below me that I could get lost. Guess I was lucky to find you again.”

 “Might as well join you,” Barkworth said as he rose into the air. “Come on, darling,” he grinned back to Estelle.

 “I'm sure I could get to love that word,” she laughed with glee as she joined them aloft.

 Barkworth would really have preferred to walk over the bridge that lined up with the gallery corridor, but at least this way he could get a better view of its side as well as of the canal below. 

And it indeed appeared to be a canal. Unlike the hinged bridges of the old Aotere, the bridge quickly revealed itself to be a solid structure made of carefully-fitted stone blocks, probably ersatz like so much else here. This suggested the new Aotere was not made up of three free-floating rafts like its predecessor, but was instead a single monolithic structure.

 The canal therefore not only had a bottom, but may have been filled with fresh water. Barkworth went down for a closer look, but with the wind-driven rain pelting its surface it was impossible to tell. But what he did now see was water gushing out of large pipes  under each end of the bridge's abutments into the canal. He could also see steps either side of them leading down to a narrow walkway about a third of a meter above the water's surface. A few small narrow boats were tied up to bollards along its edge. These looked more artistic than practical, their many colors only being dulled by the rain.

 “What a dumb way to dispose of sewerage,” Carol said sniffily.

 “That's their water supply, more likely,” Estelle suggested. “Off the roofs of the houses we're about to see. The sewerage would go to that farm I would imagine.”

 “After suitable purification of one and debugging of the other,” Barkworth said. “Recycling would be vital in a setup like this, but the technology to keep it all disease-free would have to be as clever as anything else we've so far seen. Meanwhile, let's go drop in on somebody. With any luck they'll be home.”

 They flew the short distance to land on the promenade on the other side of the canal. This was similar to the one they had left, though somewhat wider.

 “Go left this time,” Estelle said. “I've no idea what my intuition's like.”

 “Soon know,” Barkworth quipped.

 “Why would this street be uphill?” Carol asked. “It's very slight, but..”

 “No idea,” Barkworth said. “Maybe the mechanisms that make this raft move are under there. The last Aotere was sail powered, and what magnificent sails they were.”

 It really was a wonderful raft...” Estelle said, as she and Barkworth described it to her. “The people were happy there. Why the powers-that-be, whoever they are, didn't just keep patching it up and keep sailing in the tropics is a mystery to me.”

 “Did you see the powers-that-be at all?” Carol asked.

“Not really,” Barkworth said. “We didn't explore the raft as much as we should have. But then Estelle and I had other things on our minds.”

 He tried hard to stay straight faced as did Estelle, but Carol wasn't fooled.

 “I see. At your age,” she looked hard at Barkworth. “What were you thinking? She's only eighteen months old. Still a virgin. She'll love you now for ever and ever.”

 He looked at Estelle; he wasn't entirely sure Carol was joking. She obviously didn't quite know what to think either.

 “I will too, you know,” she moved quickly into his arms. “Forever and ever.”

 “Yes, my darling.  Forever and ever.”

 They kissed loudly.

 “Guess we'd better find that house,” he laughed as they parted. “Maybe an empty one, just for us. What are your plans, Carol?”

“Come on, Carol,” Estelle laughed as she hugged her. “You're with us now. I don't know what's going to happen, but I guess if we did it wouldn't be much of an adventure.”

 
Barkworth avoided passing through the sizable picture-window that dominated the wall in front of him, he wanted to see what the house was made of. But he might as well not have bothered. Since no light penetrated the wall, he couldn't see into it.

 The first thing he noticed was that he was on his own. He guessed the two women  had finished up on the other side of the inside wall he found himself standing next to.

 He took in the room he had just entered.  It was apparently a lounge, occupied by two children of what appeared to be Mexican descent. On their own, they were happily playing a brightly colored board-game on the carpeted floor, with squares and other shapes that lit up as they moved their sculpted game-pieces haphazardly across it.

 It was clear the whole family lived on the floor, just as on the old Aotere. Here though the furniture was somewhat more sophisticated with long narrow squabs, a couple of small square ones, and a solid looking table with a stylish vase of flowers on top, but no legs. The inside walls were lightly embossed with a pattern that resembled a fine latticework.  It all looked more Japanese than Mexican, though Barkworth was fairly sure Japanese culture as idolized by the `Back to Japan' movement in the post-Contact World had not yet even begun in this one.  

 In the corner of the room was what appeared to be a flat-screen T.V. of the kind popular on pre-Contact Earth. But what really caught Barkworth's eye was the picture on it showing trigonometrical diagrams surrounded by symbols; along with an audio  commentary. He couldn't believe this was the only type of program shown on Aotere, but  then what kind of T.V programs could such a relatively small community produce? It also suggested science dominated the culture on the new Aotere just as much as it did on the old.

 He decided to join the women in the next room. This turned out to be a kitchen, and they were both watching with keen interest the two adults of the family prepare a meal. He knew it couldn't be hunger, they were all as free of that as they were of all other bodily demands except, apparently, sleep and sex.

 But that kitchen was one of the strangest he had ever seen. It re-affirmed that the Aotere had still not encountered metals – or for that matter, ceramics. But, along with electricity, they had somehow discovered gas. For that's what they were cooking on – using a transparent flat pan made of what Barkworth assumed was a polycarbonate of some sort. On a shelf beside the twin-burner gas hob – itself presumably made of a similar plastic – was what was very probably a microwave oven, vegetables of some sort were giving off steam inside it. And there, in the far corner, was a large ornate cabinet of molded plastic that might well have been a fridge. Various shelves, cupboards and drawers looked fairly standard, apart from looking as if they had somehow been extruded from the wall lining.

  “Too bad we can't smell it - or eat it,” Carol said, turning round as she noticed his appearance. “Looks wonderful.”

 “I'm sure it is,” Estelle agreed. “Carol thinks gas is much better to cook on than electricity, because that's what she grew up with at home. Just where it comes from though is something I'd like to know.”

 “So would I,” Barkworth said. “It can usually only come from underground, or made from coal. So theirs has to be pure hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, which require lots of electricity,” he pointed to the strip lighting above, which seemed to be standard on the Aotere. “And with no metals, they have to have electro-conductive plastics, something that requires very advanced chemistry indeed. I think, once you girls can tear yourselves away from that wonderful cooking, we should head straight to the center raft to find out just how this civilization could possibly have happened. We missed that on the old Aotere,”

 “Can I guess why?” Carol laughed pointedly.

 “The master has spoken,” Estelle laughed.

 Barkworth didn't like the sound of that at all.

“OK, so maybe I'm taking myself too seriously here. Perhaps it would be best if I left you two on your own for a while. You've known each other longer than I have. If you want to catch up you know where I'll be.”

 And with that he took off straight up through the kitchen's ceiling, through what he took to be a bedroom in the story above, then into a mercifully rain-free sky. A break in the clouds allowed the sun to play over the amazing suburb-like sight below, with its terracotta roofs still funneling water into gutters and downpipes which presumably led to the canal outlets he had seen earlier. Trees of all kinds, many he suspected from Central or South America, grew all around. He also noticed that they grew straight from the ground, not in large pots as on the old Aotere.

 And now, for the first time, he saw vehicles, not that there were many of them. And they were all very small utilitarian jeep-like trucks with open cabs in front of their trays.

 A few people, mostly children, had now begun to venture out.

 His own phrase 'like a kitten with a ball of string...' passed through his mind as he pressed on over the slightly humped `suburb raft' as he now thought of it towards the magic city in the center. `Well, so be it', he thought as he approached the second of the Aotere's canals. 'That's the way I am. And that's how...”

 … Quincey quietly came up from behind and stabbed him in the mind.

 The second of the two canals was even more Venice-like than the one he left behind. Its parapets and walkways appeared to be marble, as did its elaborately-carved boats. Most of these had cast off from their moorings, and carried one or two passengers along with assorted  cargoes.

 But even with these, they still looked less useful than ornamental.

 He realized he was in no real hurry after all, in fact he was actually enjoying being on his own. He hadn't been particularly miserable before he met Quincey. Middle age had its advantages in that most people had by then settled into whatever role they had found for themselves in Paradise, in his case as a Conversationalist. Quincey had been a stroke of luck he hadn't expected, but certainly welcomed. He didn't doubt he would eventually welcome Estelle back into his life, with or without Carol.

 Just now he was happy to wait and see.

 The road over the first canal continued over the next, then disappeared into a broad tunnel set into a small open park. This was nestled inside the first two rows of relatively plain buildings which, like the canal, were apparently made of marble. In the three rows beyond the first, hints of a slight beige color appeared, then a faint pinkish hue.

 Barkworth decided to set himself down on the narrow piece of lawn beside the tunnel and the first row of buildings fists and all to his left. Walking over to it past the few mostly young people, he climbed its three shallow steps and entered through the apparently ubiquitous pairs of non-opening automatic glass doors.

 And promptly found himself witnessing an all-out brawl between what looked like a hundred or so teenagers. They were all involved, fists and all, none was hanging back.

 Once Barkworth had gotten over his shock at seeing this, he then noticed that it was apparently being supervised by one or two adults standing at each of the four corners of what appeared to be most of the floor of the building. Like the youths, they too were wearing sports gear similar to that he had seen in the gallery passageway. He began to wonder if it was all was somehow a part of their education.

 But some of the injuries were obviously serious, blood was being spilt. A few youths had to give up and leave the fight. Adults rushed to their aid, and led them off to a room at the back of the `arena'..

 What could the other floors possibly be like? More of the same? He walked forward a few steps, then lifted off cautiously towards the ceiling. He wasn't sure he could pass through it since it was, after all, also a floor. But he had no difficulty.

 The sight that confronted him caused him to forget to try landing on the `floor' again. Once more a large number of teenagers were engaged in supervised violence, but this time it was of a no-holds-barred sexual nature that made him wince. He had encountered the odd sex-addict group in Paradise, but none behaved like this.

 He flew up towards the third floor in trepidation, wondering what he was going to see next.

At first it looked entirely innocuous. A similar size group of teenagers as before sat eating a meal in what was obviously a restaurant. But as Barkworth watched, he noticed that the food kept coming. And coming and coming. This was virtually food as torture, something else he had never seen before.

 The notion of `expiation' crossed his mind, but it seemed way short of enough to explain how anything he had so far seen could possibly be justified as `education'.

 He decided to fly directly into the next building, half-expecting to see more of the same.

 What he saw there was almost a surprise. Slightly younger students sitting at desks arranged in semi-circles. But there was no pen or paper here, the students were using what looked like Otindas, though they were perhaps more like the keyboard-less laptops that became all but universal on most Worlds before their Contact. Behind the teachers were much larger such units.

 But unlike the one he had seen in the `suburban' house he had visited, these showed what he suspected were South American scenes. That told him a lot. The Aotere obviously had visited South America, and it had developed some form of camera technology, along with that of computers. That meant one or more of the chambers in the Gallery had to be given over to the manufacture of the relatively high-technology devices he had so far seen. And the underlying science that had allowed them to be produced would have to rival that of many worlds just prior to their Contact.

But, also like most such worlds, it appeared they hadn't discovered everything. None of those images were aerial, nor did they move.

 Nevertheless, he wondered if the Aotere had the beginnings of comparator technology which led to artificial consciousness.

 And Contact.  

 But all this was just a simulation that was happening only in his own head, wasn't it? Contact? Here?

 Time to move on.  He could come back and look at these perimeter buildings after he had been to the center. Where the key to all this – he hoped – lay.

 He zoomed out of the building into a rapidly-clearing sky. With the sun now shining on it the full glory of Aotere could at last be seen. He had seen many beautiful sights in his travels through Paradise, but few compared with this. The buildings became more elaborately filigreed and sculptural in their shapes as he progressed towards the center, their hues also changed as he had noticed before, from pinkish near the perimeter through a creamy tint, then a faint jade-like hue, and towards the center, a pale ming blue to rival the sky itself.

 He again wondered why it was that, whatever culture on whatever World one visited, the architecture associated with centers of great thought or knowledge was almost always of a higher aesthetic quality than that of any other buildings surrounding them.

 Just as it crossed his mind that it might have been his own cultural biases coming to the fore, he heard a familiar voice from behind him:

 “Barkworth..! I'm so glad I've found you!” Estelle shouted as she approached him. “I had no idea how I was going to, I just hoped that – whatever it is that allows us to fly – would bring me to you. But I didn't have to worry, I spotted you as soon as you flew out of that building. Have you learned much so far?”

 He wasn't entirely sure she wasn't being sarcastic.

 “None the wiser, really,” was all he felt like saying. “ - Where's Carol?”

 “She said she'd catch us up later,” Estelle replied. “She was absolutely fascinated with those houses. Well, they were interesting, we looked at two more before I left to join you.  -  Miss me?”

 “Of course,” Barkworth replied. But he wasn't entirely sure he meant it. He was quite happy that she had caught him up, but he also knew there would have to be limits. Quincey might have been sarcastic, exquisitely so, but never at him.

 Well, not in a malicious way.

 They had very nearly arrived.

 The vast central building, now that he could see it more clearly, looked a lot like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul back on Earth, one of the first `foreign' buildings he had seen in his youth. There were differences however. The entire building was marble, not brick. Though the dome, perhaps a hundred meters across, was suspended magically on a row of windows, the entire rotunda sat on an octagonal base. This had its own high-arched windows set along each of its walls. There were no minarets nor any outbuildings attached to it, though the several buildings surrounding it all had many spires. The whole assemblage glistened in the sun.

 “Where should we land?” Estelle asked.

 But he was already heading for the top of the dome. “I said I was heading for the center of Aotere,” he replied, “and I guess this is it. Not sure though whether the physics of this world will treat this as a floor or something we can just pass through.”

 He kept his knees slightly flexed just in case, but in the event he passed straight through it, as did Estelle just above him.

 He quickly slowed to a hover as he found himself in a vast circular chamber with its floor just below the dome's ring of windows. Contained within it was a small ring of cosy-looking armchairs, sixteen of them, each with an otinda supported by a short lecturn just in front of them. None of these were showing any images.

 Yet all but one of these chairs were occupied by late middle-aged men and women, wearing a variety of clothing. They each apparently represented the various peoples making up the population of the Aotere, Barkworth had no idea there were so many.

 He also noticed that the chamber was relatively stark. Apart from the rich plum-colored drapes hanging between the windows, and the circular elaborately-designed rug in the center of that learned-looking circle, the place was empty of decoration. Unlike the Hagia Sophia, there was no hint of religious embellishment here.

Nor any hint of singing, chanting, or anything like that. Though he could not understand the language, the discussion here was clearly very civilized, and the demeanor of the speakers completely professional. It looked more like a conference than a government.

 He now began to wonder if  the conduct of governance on the old Aotere had been the same as here. He was sorry he hadn't been able to find out.

 “Everybody on this raft is so well-behaved,” Estelle whispered to him, even though she must have known they couldn't be heard. “I can't help feeling a little suspicious.”

 Barkworth had to laugh. “Well, as it happens...” he said as he gave her a quick run-down of the astonishing scenes he had witnessed in that canal-front building. “... it seemed to be all arranged, as if it had been done as a part of their education. But I've neither seen nor heard of any formal education involving anything like that. Some schools turn a blind eye to the rough play their students might get up to outside their studies, part of their `socialization' as they say. But most schools I know of wouldn't tolerate any such behavior at all.”

 “Gosh...” Estelle said, obviously shocked. “But according to Carol I am only eighteen months old. I can see I have a lot to learn about humans. - You're not entirely happy with me are you? I've learned enough about you to be sure of that.”

 “Well...” he mock-pondered. “You women are just like us blokes. Get two or more together and you're liable to turn into monsters. But I guess I can forgive you. As you say, you're only eighteen months old, so I can't expect you to know that. So I'll blame Carol instead.”

 She laughed with relief. “Poor Carol,” she said.

 “And if I might add,” Barkworth said, “I still think you're gorgeous.”

She reached out and hugged him. Barkworth didn't mind that at all.

 “So, what do you think we should next,” she gazed at him in that way that had only ever brought one result. “Mr Explorer?”

 “No, I couldn't,” he had to say. “Not here. Just wouldn't feel right. I know. Let's explore. Might be even more fun.”

 He patted her on the rump, then ran off towards the nearest exit.

 
Fortunately the steps he soon came across acted as hard surfaces, but after he went down a few, he lifted off a few centimeters, then tried to fly down through them - and succeeded. It seemed solidity on the Aotere really was just a state of mind. His mind, anyway.

 But he was quite happy to land on the next `hard' surface, which was another step on a staircase directly below the one he had just left. He nearly lost his balance, but instead of getting airborne again recovered it the old fashioned way and started to walk down the remaining steps to the floor below.

 He looked up to see if Estelle had done the same thing, but there was no sign of her. He waited a few moments, then he realized that, since the floors were separated by two flights of stairs with a landing in between, he should have walked up to get to the floor  below the Dome Chamber, as he now thought of it.

 He re-climbed the stairs.

 He met her at the entrance doors to that floor just as he climbed the last step and she stepped down from hers.

 “OK, I give up,” he laughed.

 “Does that mean...?” her eyes shone. “Before Carol comes back?”

That only added to his growing sense of urgency.

 “Not here – too public,” he looked around, but could see nobody. “Let's see if we can find ourselves a cubbyhole in here.”

 When he passed through the doors, he saw immediately that there would be no chance of that. For this too was a single vast chamber, with the immense floor-to-ceiling arched windows he had seen earlier in each of its eight walls. Along each window and gazing out through them, six young adults, each dressed similarly to the adults upstairs, sat in rather more spartan armchairs. These too had otindas supported on stands in front of them, but unlike those showed scenes of the ocean around them that seemed to repeat what was actually visible through the windows. Barkworth could not figure out the point of that.

 The chamber was wall-to-wall carpeted with Celtic-like designs similar to those on the canal parapet, In its center stood an elaborately-carved wooden dais, upon which an elderly bearded gentleman sat almost as if he had just arisen from the carpet. As Barkworth approached, a watcher from the other side of the chamber called out and the dais rotated so as to face him. Barkworth could see numerous glowing digital readouts surrounding a sizable Otinda screen. He could also now see that the old man was holding some sort of complex finger-operated control in his left hand. The image of the ocean on his screen appeared to expand to show a small whale breaching the surface.

 Commands of some sort were then issued, which he suspected were relayed to other parts of the building. But there was no other response that Barkworth could see. The room quickly returned to what appeared to be a watchful somnolence.

 “Looks like we're on the bridge of the Good Raft Aotere,” Estelle said.

 He couldn't figure out why that had never crossed his mind. `Must be getting old,' he thought to himself.

 “The command chain's obviously improved over the old Aotere,” he struggled to make up for it. “Guess that's what those screens are for. They act like telescopes so they can spot anything distant before it becomes a problem. - Now to our wee problem, for which I'm sure a solution is delightfully close to hand...”

 He pointed towards the floor, lifted off a little, then dropped through to the floor below.

 She quickly followed.

 “This is more like it...” she breathed as they found themselves in what appeared to be a small office. “Too bad we can't lock that door.” 

"With any luck it's already locked.” he said as he helped her down, then buried his lips in hers.