I disembarked from the GRIS-RT at the Central Athenia station and headed back to the place I had left More the day before with Thoreau - that bench was one of Henry’s favorite sitting and thinking places, and if they were not there enjoying the morning air they would not be far removed, as Henry’s cottage was but a few yards distant. They were not on the bench nor did I see them anywhere nearby, so I made my way to Henry’s front door and knocked on the wooden edge then pulled open the screen door and stuck my head in. The kitchen table, for this was the room the door opened into, still had some breakfast remnants scattered about, but the chairs were empty and the morning newspapers abandoned on the table top.

“Good morning - anybody home here?” I asked. There was no answer, but then I heard voices coming from the far room.

“Hee hee,” I heard a giggle, then joined by a “Ho ho ho!!”

Strange, I thought - in our brief acquaintance, I had never known Henry to be much of a laugher, although he showed a considerable wit at times. I let the door swing shut behind me, and crossed the floor to the opposite doorway, which led to a combination bed-sitting room, the “guest bedroom” in the small cottage, which also had a “master” bedroom and bathroom besides the kitchen - we had a number of such units scattered around the pond and in other areas of the campus for temporary visitors who were more comfortable in such surroundings than in the larger apartment complexes. And there they were, the two of them, sitting at the table staring at the computer screen (all of our rooms were computer and internet equipped), chatting animatedly.

“My heavens, gentlemen, and what are you doing?!” I asked as I walked over to join them - I had not had time to show Henry anything about the computer yet, so was quite surprised to see them using it.

“Ah, Bigelow!” said Henry, turning to me with a smile, “and why have you not shown me this marvelous machine before now, eh? I must say, it is quite the most wond’rous thing I have seen yet, in this world of wonders!”

“Indeed, Bigelow,” chirped in a grinning More, still only half-dressed, a worn purple housecoat half open over suspendered breeches and still sockless, “the wonders of this age are truly marvelous to behold! It has been many a long year since I have been so entranced by a simple machine! Here Henry,” he enthused, pushing excitedly at Henry’s hand and reaching for the computer mouse, “look at this we’ve just found!”

- with which he turned to the screen and busied himself for a moment, clicking away, a frown of concentration on his face, as I moved closer to watch over his shoulder. The screen was redrawing itself as I watched - and soon a stylised 3-D map of modern-day London was on the screen. More clicked a couple of more times, and soon it was enlarged so the Thames River as it flowed by the Houses of Parliament was obviously the center.

“Look at this!” cried More, laughing and turning to me, “London, England, right here on this little window! I hardly believe it, it is so huge and different, but the Parliament is the same, and the Thames - even the Tower still stands, where I spent such miserable time - and that huge wheel thing! But there is so much, so much - look!” he turned back to Henry, “Where is that bookmark thing, Henry? Where is your home?” he turned once again to me - “They even have Henry’s old log cabin he told me all about on here! The one he built himself by the Walden Pond - here now,” and he looked back to the screen where Henry had found what they were after. “Look! Isn’t it simply amazing? I am entranced, truly entranced! I could spend months here, I am sure, just seeing what they have in this huge library! I still don’t entirely understand how they get it all in this little box though!” he finished, looking at me with a small frown and pointing at the standard GRIL (Green Island Linux) box at the edge of the desk.

The new Green Island Linux system really was a joy to use, finalised a couple of years ago by some of the minds we had freed from their day-slave-labour jobs required in the old society. Our productivity had risen somewhere between 20-25%, now that significant portions of many days for many workers whose time was spent on computers were not spent recovering data or waiting for reboots and reloads from the old Microsoft systems, which were so unreliable - and it was a large ongoing budgetary item removed from the provincial finances too, dealing with upgrades and maintenance and what required by the much inferior previous system. GRIL was now one of our main “foreign exchange” earners as well, even though Microsoft and the US government were trying to prevent its sale, based on some arcane interpretation of the NAFTA, which they took to mean that they were free to prevent competition or something - typical US interpretation of “trade” treaties anyway - we’re free to do as we like and you’re free to knuckle under or we’ll get you somehow. Whatever, the Green Island government had made it clear that we no longer supported such treaties, and had disengaged ourselves. The question of what right the Canadian government, elected with far less than 50% support of the Canadian people, had to sign such obviously disadvantageous treaties and try to impose them on everyone as if they were a new constitution was in front of the courts, and would be part of the upcoming case.

“Look, More,” Thoreau suddenly spoke up, pulling at More’s shirtsleeve to get his attention, “Will you just look! It’s the whole New England coast!” he had switched sites again, and now there was a full-colour real-time map of northeastern North America; “Look - I swear, there’s Massachusetts, and Maine - and look, over here,” pointing, “why, that’s what that girl told us was Prince Edward Island!” he looked up at me - “Is it so, Bigelow? Is this little place really where we are now?”

“Indeed it is, Thoreau, indeed it is!” I replied, glancing at the familiar screen; “Well done, I must say - although I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised - I understand you were quite a traveller and travel-writer in your day, and are familiar with maps and their use, eh? But about this whole computer system, Thomas, I don’t know where to begin - but how did you find out about this at all?” I asked, “I mean, it wasn’t a secret, but I haven’t had a chance to tell Henry about this yet, and I am quite surprised to see you operating it.. and quite well, I should add!”

“Oh, well, Bigelow,” said Henry, dragging his attention away from the screen, where he had been tracing around the Island with a bit of a critical look on his face about something, “last evening, you see, we were sitting on the bench by the pond having a pipe and wee chat before retiring, and a lovely young lady - quite a lovely young thing indeed - came along and started talking with us - quite forward, really, also, but we humoured her for awhile, and as it turned out she was quite interesting. She was studying, oh, what was it, More?...”

More had been listening with a smile on his face, and joined in, “Henry, I’m surprised you forget! She said she was studying old ideas for Utopian societies, and asked us if we knew anything about such things!” he laughed heartily as he finished.

“Oh, yes, of course,” continued Thoreau, chuckling also, “and then we asked her where she learned about such things, and she told us like most of her fellow students she did most of her research on this thing here,” he gestured at the computer, “something called - oh, what was it? The World Wide Spiderweb or something - oh, yes, the Internet. Neither of us, of course, had ever heard of such a thing, and she volunteered to show us. Very forward, I say! She said she thought most little cottages like ours had this thing called a “computer” (which of course we had also never heard of), and so we looked - and here was this machine that we then learned was called a computer. She showed us how to turn it on and use it, and - well, we’ve hardly slept the whole time since, Bigelow! It seems we’ve travelled all over the world in the last few hours, a world neither of us ever imagined!”

“Bigelow, it’s true!” chimed in More, unable to contain himself in his excitement, “this World Wide Web thing has everything from Heaven to Hell in it, or on it, or whatever you say! Saints and Sinners innumerable; Kings and Popes and laymen and artists and every book you’ve ever heard of and a million more you haven’t! All the countries and world maps! Today’s newspapers from every country and city! It’s like a huge library, with a theatre and a cathedral and a parliament and museums and atlases and a commons all mixed together! Oh, really, words fail me! A GRoogle here and a GRoogle there (the computer people had modified the Google search engine as well, as part of the GRIL, of course), and it seems there is nowhere at all you can’t go!”

With which he turned to Henry, shaking his head and smiling, and shrugging his shoulders quite eloquently.

“Not to mention things a gentleman normally wouldn’t talk about, eh More?” added Thoreau, with a snarky sort of little grin, something I imagined had rarely decorated that long face, which was answered by no more than a somewhat embarrassed “Oh, well...” from More - I didn’t pursue it, coming, I supposed, from a somewhat more enlightened age, or less oppressive, at least about certain things. At least here in Green Island, generally - there were still a lot of pretty backwards places on the old planet yet, in terms of sex and other things.

“Well,” I continued, as they both paused for a breath at the same time, allowing me to speak, “it certainly is one of the wonders of the modern age. It has allowed communication to become the property of the common man, rather than the property of the elite as it has been for so long, and we have been using it to great effect to help us in our struggles to put some regulations and rules on the elites in our society. But I am sure you will find out quite a bit more about this over the next few days, since everyone you meet, I think, will be using this tool quite a lot. But now, if you gentlemen please, and I can persuade you to leave this new toy, we do have an appointment in town!”

“Excellent!” replied More, “if you’ll just give me a moment to get a shirt on, I shall be right with you!” And so he was, a minute or two later, shirt and socks and shoes, and reaching for his cane and tricorner - for all the time he stayed with us, he would never lose his habit of formal dress, although it must have been a tad uncomfortable at times. Henry had been dressed, more or less, when I arrived, and just pulled his long black coat on, which he never ventured outside without - he always seemed to have anything he needed in one of the many pockets it contained, although what he used most frequently was, I suppose naturally enough all things considered, a well-thumbed leather covered notebook. Looking back as we rose to leave, he remarked “The computer machine is wonderful, but yet more wonderful is meeting people and going places on your own!”

And he pulled open the screen door of the cottage, politely ushering More and I out ahead of him, into the beautiful fresh air of the Green Island Athenia morning. Noone thought to lock the door - in the new civility of Green Island, in a society much less rushed, with more time for people meeting and knowing people, with government and business leaders encouraging good behaviour by example, as a few years ago the same people had encouraged quite poor behaviour by their example, stealing was becoming quite unacceptable. It was the way decent people lived, and above all, most of us simply wanted a decent society where decent people could live decent lives.