Chapter Twenty-One: Terrible Truths

Despite having slept for over two weeks, Jonathan did not need any encouragement to fall into a large bed in the crisp and stark large hotel room. Norman was perched on an end table, staring out the window onto the ground below. Jonathan though about how the creature had managed to get back to Norton as he drifted off to sleep. He must have gone on the idealist ship that met the colonists there. The intellegence that the creature possesed still seemed amasing to Jonathan.

It was morning before he woke up again. Marcelle was sleeping on the other side of the bed. The sunlight was steeming in through a crack in the curtains, illuminating all of the white and grey furnature in the room. Norman was stretched out it the shadow away from the sunlight. His natural habitat, was, of course, much cooler.
Jonathan looked a clock. It had been so long since he has seen one. He realised that he did not know what month it was, let alone day. But he did know that it was eight thirty in the morning. The weather was warm and fresh, it seemed like spring to him. Out the window, he could see New Baghdad, one of the oldest cities on earth. It was built very near to the site of the old city. It was a vitcim of much bombing during the destruction, and then the elctromagnetic weapon had destroyed the rest of the city. It was easier to re-locate in the post-destruction world than it was to re-inhabit the middle eastern city.
A telephone rang in the room. Jonathan walked over and pick up the familiar machine nostalgically. It had been a long time since he had even thought about a telephone. Returning to Earth was something he was really beginning to enjoy.
"Hello?" Jonathan asked.
"Good morning Jonathan," the President's voice said over the line. "I trust I didn't wake you?"
"No sir. I was awake."
"I hope you slept well. I've booked a large part of the day for you and your companions. I hoped we could meet for nine thirty?"
"Of course. Harry, I have a question for you."
"Shoot."
"What day is it?"
"May third."
"Nine Thirty?" Jonathan asked.
"Yes. You'll meet an escort in the lobbey, they'll bring you right over to the parliment buildings."

At nine thirty, Marcelle and Jonathan walked across the lobbey of the Royal Hotel. They turned heads, as Norman was sitting across Marcelle's shoulders, keeping very still but not even trying to blend in with the colour of her clothing.
The escort was immediately easy to spot. Two men in sombre black suits were waiting by the door, wearing sunglasses. They led the two people down the steps to a waiting car. It was identical to the one Jonathan had rode in the day before.
The parliment buildings were not far from the Royal Hotel. It was an uneventful ride to the long low building where the President lived and worked. It was as white as the rest of the buildings on Earth, and was kept very clean. It was not an easy task in the environment at times.
Jonathan spent the morning with the President and told his story yet again. The President cross referenced a lot of the information with Marcelle, and eventally leaned back in his chair, content with his knowledge of the galaxy.
He pondered for a few minutes and the leaned forward. "You're saying that the idealist are oppressive? That they've been killing followers of your ideology? They have lied about the existence of Earth for the last millenium, and went out of their wat do decieve Jonathan and the rest of the colonists?"
"That's the idea, sir." Marcelle said. "We don't know why they wouldn't tell us anything about Earth. We hoped that we would be able to find some sort of reason why here."
"That can't be the only reason why you came here."
"You're right, Harry." Marcelle said. "It's not. My group has no means of spreading our message without highjacking or stowing away on ships. We need your light speed travel abilities."
The president looked blankly at the woman. "You realise, of course, that it makes no sense what-so-ever for me to provide that data to you?"
"Yes, I realise that sir. I had just hoped that you might not have denied me something that could quite possibly save the human race from etneral damnation."
"Ah yes, I wondered if Religion might play a part in this. You are of course understanding of the fact that we are weary of Religion?"
"Sir," Jonathan began. "May I ask access to the historical library. Can we at least get the historical information we need?"
"Of course. I encourage it. You never know, maybe you'll find some evidence of something that might support your request for light travel data."
Jonathan and Marcelle took Norman and left the President's office. They walked down the hall and eventually out a door and across a yard to another building. It was a library of sorts that looked after as much of the information from pre-Destruction earth as possible. Jonathan and Marcelle took to the difficult task of trying to find out as much information on the time when Warren Jones had left earth as possible. They were trying to find some evidence as to why the Idealists would not want their population to think thatEarth existed.
They dug for hours through the electronic records, using special search programs, and they poured over the reproductions of paper books - and the few originals still holding together after a millenium. It proved to be a mostly fruitless search until Norman nosed a book infront of Marcelle and indicated a passage with one of his legs.
It was a record of births in an old earth hospital. Marcelle read the passage carefully, but did not want to believe what it said. It was a peice of information that she did not want to accept, but could not help but feel was terribly important.
The information about the Idealist's hero and saviour, Warren jones was all there. The date and place of birth, all of it well recorded in in Idealist history that Marcelle knew well. There was one problem however. The log said that on March 12, 2386 a boy named Septimus Warren Jones was born.
This passage seemed to suggest that Septimus Jones and Warren Jones were not in fact brothers, but that they were one and the same people. The hero of colonial humanity was also it's most terrible villian.