Quest for the Conestoga (Colony Ship Conestoga Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

on his face. “How can anyone have heard anything more? Those adventurers just came back and we were some of the first people they encountered.”
     
    “You knew they were coming back before I did,” Cammarry replied. “By the time I walk over there some of the information gathered may have already been processed. You never know what people hear.”
     
    Jerome hugged her and kissed her. He did not share the thoughts that were going through his head, about how she was going there to share the information she already had and not to learn new information. One thing about Cammarry, she loved to be able to spin a good yarn and was able to do so with a minimum amount of information.  She was always accurate, but posed questions which did make the mind wonder.
     
    Jerome walked down a different direction and proceeded to the educational center. He had a lot on his mind and wanted to be able to see some of the age-mate groups and perhaps he could read a story to the 10-year-old group.  He always found that a fun thing to do. He considered his own age-mate group and how many more there were in his group than there were in the new infant group or the five-year-old group.  These latest groups were down to only twenty-five age-mates, which did not bode well for the population of Dome 17. 
     
    Walking past the nursery, Jerome looked through the windows and saw the bassinets of the newly gestated infant group. The attendants were busy nurturing; rocking, holding, and playing with them. Jerome smiled as he considered how this group of twenty-five infants would grow up together and be lifelong friends. Few people were ever closer than your age-mate group.
     
    The twenty-five ten-year old students were just finishing an interactive lesson with biologist John. John was an older man, and being a biologist he mostly spoke about things from the ancient past. In a way, Jerome related to him differently than anyone else in the dome.  Jerome liked the old literature while John liked the old biology. The few aspects of biology in Dome 17 were all interconnected: human lifecycle biology, recycling of human wastes, and the biology necessary to make the food ration bars. The food ration bars were very simple biology, and human biology was often overshadowed by the medical facilities, and the population guidance procedures.  He knew John was actively involved in both of those areas as well as teaching the children.
     
    Jerome leaned into the classroom to listen to what John was teaching.
     
    “….  so yes children there were vast regions of water at one time covering a large percentage of the earth’s surface.  In some places that water was kilometers deep.”
     
    There was a chuckling and laughter that emerged from the crowd of ten-year-old children. One of them commented under his breath. “This must be a fairytale. I cannot ever believe that there was that much water anywhere.”
     
    “I heard what you said young man,” John stated with a wry grin. “And I certainly understand why you would say that. Currently there is no amount of water like that anywhere on the earth and we have to struggle to recycle as much water as possible.  Our efficiency and reclamation of water here in Dome 17 is very high but not quite 100%.  We do still extract a little bit of water from the outside atmosphere but that amount is less and less every year and involves every increasingly complex sterilization and cleansing. Our deep underground cistern system provides a small amount of water as well, but it too is hard to make potable.  When I was your age we got a much larger percentage of our water through extraction processes from the outside atmosphere and ground but unfortunately now we cannot do that. However, in the distant past the water system of this planet was very impressive.  Hydrology was a vast science and it is just fascinating. Let me have my personal AI show you an ancient visual recording. Rachel Carson?”
     
    The artificial