I am one of the oldest now. I still look eighteen, of course. Well, maybe closer to twenty. We still own the Base, and although there are still minor battles with those on the outside, we've done all right.

There are children. Children born here, and children from the other time. We get New Ones all the time, though we go out to recruit them, mostly. Some come up to the fence to beg us for entry, though we rarely take them. Too needy. I still never trust strangers.

We need the New Ones, though. We need strong people who can jump back to the other time to bring us what we need here. The garden on the Base is large, but after we stripped it of all it had, nothing grew. There are those among us who seem to understand The Other better than I, some say it speaks to them. They brought seeds from real time, and the plants grew here. Of course they did.

There is a new movement growing in our group. There are over two hundred of us now,and the group is starting to be too big for my small ideals and goals. I'm told the splinter among us goes back and brings New Ones with them from real time. It worries me a little, but I think it's a good plan.

Sometimes the children born here frighten me, including my own. My youngest has told me he can jump, too. He says he's jumped to a faster time than ours, that he sits and watches me. He calls me "freezer" when he's angry with me.

I sit alone and think about everything. Too often, Ben tells me. I think about everything we've been through. We've come from a destroyed world to another one on its way. If the time comes when a generation far removed from my own cannot live here anymore, I know where they can go. The next Other. May our luck be with them.

The End

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