Phix retrieves her glasses and rejoins the group by the fire, sitting so her back is to the northern cliff.  She rattled her wings earlier to shake off the water, and then shook her fur.  She's still damp and her fur and hair are a bit matted.

"Alan, you like astronomy, right?.  What do you think of the full moon tonight?" she says, gesturing to the east while adjusting her perch on the sand.

"It's beautiful, of course," replies Alan, "and it looks so large because it's low on the horizon over the water.  One of those optical illusion things -- it doesn't get any smaller when it's high in the sky."

All eyes are to the east now, the sky is darkening, and the first of some stars are visible.

Amanda speaks up. "I tried some astrophotography long ago as a project, and it's fun work.  But now that you've mentioned it, something just doesn't look quite right.  I can't put my finger on it, though."

Keith is next. "Is that an airplane?  That slow flash above and to the right... about two o'clock."

"Yes, Amanda," says Alan, "I agree.  Something is different.  Keith, that could be an aircraft -- it's too slow for a satellite.  Orbital flashes are best seen just after sunset, but they move very quickly.  Not this.  It looks like it's flying away from us, toward the moon."

"Quite so," says Phix, scratching her fuzzy leg. "Well, anyway, a while back I said this is not the end of things. So it's time I finish the story.  But first, we're missing someone.  Tepoz!!" she calls.

"Tepoz?" repeats Amanda. "That was the guy you said got this whole thing started.  He's the statue guy from the museum, right, Monica?"

"That's correct!" calls Tepoz as he approaches.  "I finally get to meet you all.  It's a pleasure!  And Monica, Shelly, good for you!  You have no idea just how glad I am it all worked!"  His golden headpiece and necklace sparkle in the firelight as he climbs over a log to sit.

"Nice to meet you, Tepoz," offers Georgette with a wave.  "I like your skirt -- ah, kilt.  Nice design!"  Bud and Jin giggle severely.

Greetings are exchanged, and Alan eventually notes that things have been so weird lately that it took him this long to notice that sitting naked around a fire chatting with a little blue man was somehow out of the ordinary.  Tepoz agrees and they have a good laugh about it.

Things settle down a bit, and Phix resumes her speech. "As you know, the Calendar Machine is somehow tied to the Aztec and Mayan calendars.  Formally, a calendar counts not just days, but cycles.  The Mayans counted cycles of 13, 18 and 20 days for various reasons.  This gave 260 and 365 day year cycles, and there were other complications, such as a 28 day lunar cycle.  A method called the 'Long Count' worked out to a 5125 year cycle.  This count starts about 3100 BC and ends in 2012.  With me so far?"

The group responds with nodding and quiet yeses all around.

"In addition to the Long Count, there was also the 'Great Cycle' made of five Long Counts.  This is 25,625  years -- a very long time indeed, and not very well known to calendar researchers.  These are what the Calendar Machine measured.  We were in the last Long Count of the last Great Cycle, ending, as I said, in 2012."

"But what would end in 2012?" asks Monica.  "For all the clues about the machine and when it did things, I still don't know what it did -- or would do.  You say we reset it.  OK, what did that accomplish?  Is it some sort of bomb waiting to destroy the world?  Have we just delayed things?  Can you tell us?"

Phix smiles as her glasses twinkle with reflected firelight.  "I'm getting to that.  The Calendar Machine is not a bomb -- it's a challenge.  Not just to you, but to all humanity.  And you are the latest team to rise and meet that challenge.  And your success has been greater than all the others before you.  You've reset the Calendar Machine to the very beginning!   You've reset the clock not just one Long Count or one Great Cycle, but five Great Cycles -- 128,125 years worth -- to restore and resume the world at just that point -- 128,125 years ago -- where you are, right now."


Silence.  All eyes are on Phix as she sits upright, her smile fading.

"Monica, you've given me your trust," says Phix softly.  "Let me show you something, but I need you to look away to show you.  Can you do that for me?"

Monica bites her lip but doesn't break eye contact.  "Yes, I can."

"Please hold out your hand, palm up, toward me," Phix directs quietly.  "I'm going to put something in your hand.  Feel it, and tell us about it."

Monica turns away and extends her right arm.  Phix quietly takes two of the metal kabob skewers and picks up a baseball-sized chunk of burning wood from the fire.  She holds it over, then drops it, into Monica's hand.  Amanda isn't the only one to gasp, but they hold their tongues.

"It's warm," offers Monica, closing her fingers around the flaming red chunk.  "Not uncomfortably hot, but very warm.  It feels crunchy, brittle, and has an uneven surface -- no sharp edges though."  As she squeezes and shifts the blazing coal, pieces fall through her fingers and sparks fly out of her flaming hand.

"OK -- now take a look, please."

Monica turns to see, automatically drawing her hand up towards her chest.  She freezes, eyes wide, when she realizes her hand is on fire.  A moment passes, and she gingerly rubs the coal with the fingers of her other hand.  More sparks fly and bounce off her chest, landing in her lap, still smoking.  Her finger tips are blackened from the fragile charcoal.  Silent, shocked, she looks to Phix.

"Please give it to Shelly."

Shelly cautiously holds out her hand.  Monica gently pours the crumbly, burning contents from her hand to Shelly's.  Shelly just stares deep into the dancing flame in her palm.

"Oh, Bud," Shelly says, starting to cry. "Now I understand when you played with the welder."

"Bud, touch the fire.  Carefully, please."

Bud reaches out gingerly to touch the glowing coal in Shelly's hand.  She stops short, then tries again, but stops again.  "Pain.  I can feel pain!  Phix -- please, what's happening?"  Bud's eyes begin to water, and she sniffs to clear her nose.

"You have reset the Calendar Machine.  Your success has a price."  Phix waits calmly for the words to sink in.  Shelly dumps the coals back into the fire and dusts her hands.  "Have you figured out what was wrong with the moon?  Watch now, and see!"

Again they turn to face the full moon, brilliant white in the growing darkness.  The twinkling light they saw earlier is now in front of the moon -- and then -- flash!  Bright as any camera, bright as the sun for a moment, then growing and expanding over the next full minute and more, the white glow spread from a dot to cover a large portion of the moon's southern half.

"Tycho!" shouted Alan and Amanda together.  "That's what was missing -- the crater Tycho!  I didn't see it there before," shouts Alan.

"Yes!" agrees Amanda, excitedly. "It's a bright white spot in the southern half of the moon's face, but it wasn't there a minute ago.  But wasn't the impact creating it several million years ago?  Something like that?"

Phix smiles, and turns back to the fire. "Well, they were off a little on that time line.  In fact, it was created just a few moments ago, as you watched! You could see that happen because the Calendar Machine is a time machine.  And it's brought you back some 128 millenia to today. This day.  Right now, in fact."

"And now Shelly and I are immune from fire?  And Bud isn't anymore?"  Monica held Shelly's hand.  Shelly held Bud's.

Phix sits up and takes a breath. "As I said, you are not the first team to tackle the mystery of the Calendar Machine.  Many have come before you.  Some were simple adventurers, some naive scientists, and many others.  Dedicated priests and shamen, clumsy archivists, businessmen, military commanders, artists and poets, craftsmen, even sailors, hunters and farmers.  All came first to me, however, and none came alone.  Those worthy of the challenge were given the book, as you were, Monica.  And in turn, they brought another -- Shelly, worthy to bear the hammer.  This task cannot be completed alone!"

"So they toiled.  That they existed at all was testament to the civilizations and cultures that created them.  Through their effort, and the shared knowledge of others before them, they found the machine and took their chance.  The first few failed utterly.  Then, a team was able to reset the Calendar Machine for one Long Count -- 5125 years.  And the next, and the next.  Some were able to reset it for two Counts, the last team even managed three Counts -- some 15,000 years.  And you, for the first time, were able to reset it to the very beginning -- five full Cycles -- so closing the hand again.  You now have 128,125 years to solve the puzzle."

Even though the night was warm, several began to shiver.  Kevin reached out to touch Monica.  "We're -- immortal?" she asked.

"No," comforts Phix.  "You are very much mortal.  It's just that you -- all of you -- will now live, unchanged and unharmed, just as you are, for five Great Cycles.  The only restriction on you is that you can never again be in the presence of the Calendar Machine.  You may not enter it's crypt.  Others will have to do that work for you.  And when they can solve the puzzle, your life will resume, as it was, from that point."

"But, as the machine has extended your lives, that gift now ends for those touched by the last reset..  Bud, Brandi, Jin, Tepoz -- your immunity has ended.  That's why you felt pain from the fire, Bud.  You all have the rest of your days from the age you first encountered the machine.  May they be happy ones." 

"As I said, Monica," Tepoz comments, "you have no idea just how glad I am this happened.  It's not that I want to die, it's that I'm tired of living this way.  Thank you.  Please accept these -- they belong to you now."  With that, he removes his golden necklace and headpiece and puts them on Monica.  Jin, Brandi, and Bud applaud politely and add their thanks.

"And Bud -- now to you."  Phix pauses a moment to choose her words.  "A nearly endless life can be a horrible thing.  The immunity and passage of time can wear on the hardiest morals, ethics, and beliefs.  The last team began with all the promise of the others, but slowly fell apart.  Some were drawn to the illusion of infinite power.  Some lusted for control and the ability to manipulate.  Some fought back and were banished by their brothers, threatening to destroy those things they held dear if they interfered.  Their conceit ruined entire populations by the millions.  They walked among the peoples of the earth as gods, seeking worshipers as slaves -- tools for their task.  In the end, they scoured the world to find the resources to create their ultimate tool.  It was a genetic weapon, and needed input, literally, from the ends of the earth.  So the world was searched by their minions, and Bud, you and Brandi were taken."

Brandi and Bud were hugging each other as Phix's words fell on them like stones.  They were crying, but held their sobs quietly.

Jin rose to her feet.  "And I was the third.  But my background was different.  You've already heard how we died, and how I tried to break the process.  As Tochtli, I had great powers, including changing my form.  I knew the priests needed genetic samples from the three peoples of the earth -- Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid -- to create their weapon: the Chimera.  I took this form as a backup plan, to hide my identity and to try and stop them.  But I found I couldn't just rescue Bud and Brandi, so I had to corrupt the creation.  By my capture and death in the pit, I ruined their work.  Despite my appearance, I wasn't the real thing -- the genetic background they needed."

"Yes, Jin," comforts Phix, "your sacrifice ruined their experiment, completely.  But most of all, it set the stage for something you could not have foreseen -- the fury and the destruction."

"I couldn't stop!" sobbed Bud. "Even Brandi tried to hold me back but I just had to lash out!  All I wanted was -- I just --  I couldn't..."

Bud buried her face in Brandi's shoulder as Brandi, crying, stroked her hair.  Jin kneeled in the sand behind her and hugged her back, crying as well.

"Bud," said Phix softly, "Bud, yes, it was horrible, but now it's time you learn more about what happened.  More to the point, what happened afterwards.  Even in the height of your fury, the madness and justifiable anger which overtook you, you were still able to make a single, crucial decision.  You directed your wrath, not at all the people like those who harmed you, but at all the people who acted and believed like those who harmed you.  In a awesome, horrible moment, you laid waste to millions -- but they were the millions who had been utterly corrupted by your murderers.  In a single stroke, you destroyed not just the people, but the culture, beliefs, and actions of those who destroyed you, and all those influenced by it."

"It's that last part that's critical, Bud!  Your wrath was widespread but finely focused.  You destroyed not but lives, but evil itself.  Yes, hundreds of millions died instantly.  And those who had depended on those people suffered greatly without parents, workers, farmers, and the others they needed to help sustain themselves.  The problems were immense. But those who remained were able to continue and grow.  And the evils perpetrated by the corrupt team were now entirely unknown to them.  Indeed, those thoughts, motives, and  goals simply never occurred anywhere again in the peoples who reformed and repopulated the world -- at least not to any degree.  And their generations grew and learned, and their children grew and learned more."

"Bud, because of you, and only because of you, the world was able to create people of such character and skill that they could face the challenge of the Calendar Machine.  They're sitting around the campfire with you right now.  You saved them.  These are your children."


Bud sat, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, shocked, silent, tears streaming down her cheeks.  Phix leaned back and waited politely.  Jin and Brandi kept their places to help comfort her as they could.  People shifted uncomfortably, deep in their thoughts, not knowing what to say. 

At last, Jacqui broke the silence.  "Kali," she said quietly.  Bud looked at her, unknowing, shaking her head slightly.  "Kali is the most powerful and most feared goddess of the Hindu pantheon.  In her only, and none of the others, is the power to destroy the world.  But not a purposeless destruction -- only when there was nothing left worth saving, and then only to cause the world to be recreated from the ashes.  This is what you did."

"And it's not our place to judge," Luci added.  "Life ebbs and flows.  Civilizations rise and fall.  Whatever hand you played in that cycle is not ours to criticize.  It's beyond us.  But I know this.  We exist as we are because of you and what you rid us of.  Thank you, Bud.  Thank you."  Luci bowed her head.  Everyone else did the same. 

Bud gulped and bowed her head too, tears still falling.  After a few moments she rubbed her eyes clear and managed a tiny voice to say, "You're welcome."  Brandi and Jin gave her more room to sit but remained nearby. 

"If you're feeling better, Bud," asked Phix, "I'd like to answer Luci's question from earlier."  Bud nodded and forced a thin smile.  Her tears were drying. 

"Luci, you've probably noticed you don't really need your glasses anymore," said Phix.

"Ack!  You're right," Luci squeaked.  "I'd completely forgotten to put them back on after swimming!  Normally I'm nearsighted, but it's stopped -- is this from the Machine?"

"Yes," answered Phix, "but now I need you to look through the eyes of your ancestors."  Phix rises and steps away from the fire into the spreading evening darkness then turns around.  She crouches on all fours like a stalking cat, her head low and tilted.  Her wings stretch back, not overhead, but beside her body and back past her legs, shielding them from view, all but the feet.  She reaches forward, gripping the sand, her arm blocking the view of her body, tail held straight and high behind her.

"Think of the ancients, as they would see me now by the fire," said Phix, looking over her upper arm at Luci. "What would they see?  What do you see?"

Luci stood slowly, staring past the fire at Phix, several paces distant.  Her red hair and brown wings glittered in the shimmering firelight.  Her glasses twinkled as they reflected the flames.

Luci swayed a bit and tensed up -- her arms rising and hands forming fists before her.  She was shaking now.  "A...  a.... a dragon!  I see a dragon!"

"Very good!" said Phix, happily.  She changes posture, now sitting fully upright on her back legs, arms down, head up and forward.  She positions her wings so the wrist joints frame her head with the outer edges vertical just behind her shoulders.  "Shelly, your turn.  I know of your Comanche heritage, and your familiarity with the tales and legends of the western tribal peoples.  What do you see -- through their eyes?"

Shelly looks and sits up stiffly.  After a moment, she gasps.  "A Kachina!  The Thunderbird -- or the Eagle totem!"

"Yes -- are you all beginning to see?" asks Phix, relaxing her pose and returning to the fire.

"Horus," offers Alan. 

"Quetzalcoatl!" shouts Georgette. 

"Valkyrie?" adds Keith. 

"And how many others?" asks Monica.

"One more, Monica," says Phix with a smile.  "Describe the Greek Sphinx."

"Guardian of knowledge," answers Monica, "Female with the body and tail of a lion, wings of an eagle, and arms, chest and head of a woman.  Often depicted with a crown."

With that last comment, Phix reached up and moved her glasses from her eyes to the top of her head, resting in her copper red hair.  "Ta da!" she crows.