The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history

by James S. Peet

  Just as he was finishing the final email, he heard the man at the desk say, “Hi. How can I help you?”

  Bill looked up and saw Matt Green.

  “I’m here for the Corps of Discovery,” Matt said. It sounded to Bill like, “Ahm he’e fo’ tha Coah o’ Discuvry”.

  After the same process Bill had just gone through, Matt joined Bill in line.

  Bill held out his hand. “Bill Clark.”

  Matt grasped Bill’s hand in return, a firm, dry hand. “Matt Green.”

  “I heard. So, what’s the Corps got planned for you?” Bill asked.

  “Co-pilot. You?”

  “Survey Specialist,” Bill answered. “Although I’ve got additional duties as copilot and navigator, apparently.”

  “That’s awesome. Maybe we’ll be working together. My additional duties are navigator and exploration surveyor.”

  “Exploration surveyor?”

  “Yeah, you know, the guys on the ground who walk around exploring. They’re the ones who do the actual cataloging of data.”

  “Wow. How’d you get that?”

  “Growing up, I was that one kid who spent more time hunting and fishing than I did in school. When I decided to go to college, I studied zoology and did a lot of outdoor stuff. As a matter of fact, I worked as a NOLS instructor for the past three summers.”

  “NOLS?” Bill asked.

  “National Outdoor Leadership School. You know, the guys who lead six-week backcountry adventures. I spent a lot of time outdoors doing basic backpacking and survival stuff.”

  “Well, I hope that you never need that survival stuff.” Just as Bill said that, the young man at the desk stood up and announced, “Gate opening in two minutes. Stand by and be ready to enter it as soon as it’s open. It burns up a lot of neutrons, so let’s not waste any.”

  A flashing yellow light above the portal turned on.

  Bill put his tablet away and grabbed the handle of his cart. He was feeling extremely nervous now, his heart rate accelerating and his palms and armpits getting clammy with sweat. He hated his reaction, but it was one he’d always had when facing the unknown.

  “One minute,” the young man said.

  Shortly thereafter, a green flashing light above the door lit up, and the yellow light shut down. The blank wall behind the portal disappeared and was replaced with another room, much smaller than the building they were in. Bill and Matt looked at each other and then walked forward.

  “Okay, head on through. Stay safe out there,” the young man said.

  As they were walking through, they passed a small group of tired-looking men and women, all dressed in Corps of Discovery dress uniforms, walking the other way. One was limping, which made Bill think about amputees again. All three had long hair, and two of the men sported beards. All had the same three ribbons that Janice and the man at the gate wore. Each pulled an empty cart behind them.

  3

  The crossover from Earth to Hayek was completely uneventful—just like walking through any other garage-sized door from one room to another.

  Once Bill and Matt entered, and as soon as the other Corps members were through, the gate shut down. A blank cinderblock wall now stood where there had been a large room teeming with thousands of people and animals. The sudden quiet was deafening.

  “Welcome to Hayek,” Bill heard. He turned to see two members of the Corps sitting beside a table. Both had laptop computers in front of them; a small stack of folded papers was between the laptops. One was a blond woman in her late twenties, the other a man in what appeared to be his early thirties. Both were extremely tanned and had short hair. Both wore the sky-blue ribbon, but not the other two ribbons that Bill had seen on all the other Corps members so far. The greeting had come from the woman.

  Next to the man was a small booth containing unfamiliar equipment—Bill presumed it was the gate controls, as he hadn’t seen anything on Earth that looked like it could control the gate.

  “Thanks,” Matt said as he advanced to the desk. Bill followed, not uttering a word.

  “You must be Matt Green, and you must be Bill Clark,” the woman said, looking at each of them.

  They nodded.

  “Well, now that you’re here, let’s get you settled in. First off, let’s check your ID.”

  Both men handed over their new identification cards, which the woman inserted into a card reader on the table. “You’re you,” she said after each card was read. She typed a few keys on the laptop, then handed the cards back.

  “Okay. What happens now is we scan all your electronic devices for viruses, and when that’s done you head to Sacajawea Base. Place your devices on the table. Don’t want any of those nasty Earth viruses on Hayek,” she finished with a smile.

  The two men did so. For Bill, it wasn’t much of a pile, just his tablet, iPod, and phone. Matt’s was slightly bigger, including a laptop and digital camera.

  The woman pointed to the phones. “If you plan on using those on Hayek, you’ll want to get a compatible SIM card. There are a couple of cell phone providers, so you can decide which company to go with once you get through training. You won’t be using them until then anyhow. On the other hand, the Corps will issue you a phone, one that’s a whole lot better than what you’ve got, so you might not want to waste your time upgrading yours.”

  The man at the table scanned each device, and once sure they were all clean, handed them back to their respective owners.

  “The skytrain is owned by Parallel, so since you’re in the Corps, you won’t need to buy any tickets. Just be sure you’ve got your ID with you when you ride it. Ride the skytrain to the base, check in there, and they’ll assign you housing. I know you’re probably excited about being on Hayek and checking out the sights, but hold off until tomorrow, or at least until later today. It ain’t goin’ nowhere.” She smiled again.

  Picking up one of the folded papers, she handed it to Matt and said, “Seein’ how you’re both going to the same place, here’s a map of Milton. The skytrain you’ll want to take is highlighted on the map, as is our location and the base. You’ll have to show your ID at the base entrance. They’ll tell you where to go. There’s also a cart return area, so once you’re done with the cart, park it there and somebody will return it to the entry point. Any questions?”

  Both men shook their heads, looked at each other, grabbed the handles of their carts, and headed toward the exit.

  “Stay safe out there,” the young woman said as a farewell.

  Just as Bill pushed the door open, he heard the older man say, “Good luck, guys. Stay safe out there.”

  Everyone keeps saying that, Bill thought. I wonder if it’s a Corps thing or a Hayek thing?

  Bill and Matt stepped out into the sunshine of Hayek. It felt just like the sunshine in Selah, yet also somewhat different. The air was cleaner. It was also hot, just as hot as it had been in Selah. Bill thought, That makes sense. The only difference between the two planets is that humans never developed here.

  In front of the building they had just exited was the skytrain station. The skytrain was a suspended rail system, consisting of concrete towers spaced every hundred yards with a rail running between them and suspended from them by a metal latticework. The towers were fifty feet tall, and the rail cars ran underneath the latticework. The bottoms of the cars were suspended twenty-five feet above the ground.

  The station was very basic, consisting of a covered platform with stairs leading up to it from either end and an elevator in the middle. Bill noticed that there was a single-lane road running alongside the station, with paved macadam paths along both sides. There appeared to be solar panels along the top of the latticework and the station roof.

  Bill and Matt walked along the short walkway between the building and the closest path and then over to the station. Bill pushed the elevator call button and asked Matt, who was still holding the map, “Which train do we get on?”

  “A Line East, looks like,” he said, showing Bill th
e highlighted map, indicating their station and their final destination. The two locations appeared to be about fifteen miles apart. The skytrain had five different routes, all with either an east-west or a north-south direction. The A-Line was the longest, and the only one stretching up the Naches River Valley. The rest were clustered within the city, and all linked at a central location marked Intercontinental Station. Bill wondered if that was where one could catch trains from Milton to other cities across North America.

  They rode the elevator to the platform and waited. It wasn’t long before a suspended train silently pulled into the station.

  An overhead voice announced, “A Line East now boarding on track E.” The train stopped, doors opened, and several people got off. Bill and Matt entered, awkwardly maneuvering their carts. There were seats at the ends, but the center area was clear, with only support poles. Each man grabbed a pole to hang onto.

  The doors closed and the train accelerated. Bill looked at a map above the door. There were only two more stops in Milton, then a long stretch until they arrived at the base.

  As the train moved the two men stared out the windows, enraptured by the view. It was an amazing sight; their first parallel city. Mt. Rainier jutted into the sky to their west, and they could see the Yakima River to their east. Between the river and the skytrain was the city of Hayek, built on the same site as the little town of Selah on Earth.

  The city was laid out in a grid, with a combination of houses and short multi-story buildings, most in the three- to five-story range. Bill could see that of the closer buildings, the bottom floor or two were for business, and from the third floor up they were residential. The architecture reminded him of Vancouver, British Columbia. Lots of glass and porches.

  The single-family homes were smaller than what he was used to, hearkening back to pre-automobile North America. He could see porches on the front, with larger backyards than front yards. He didn’t see too many automobiles, and the ones he saw most resembled old Willy’s Jeeps or little cab-over pickup trucks.

  As a geographer, Bill loved looking at backyards. Looking into those in Milton gave him some insight into the type of culture he could expect to encounter. He could tell that many of the residents were attempting to be self-sufficient. The gardens he saw weren’t just simple little plots but instead were full-scale urban agriculture, taking up the majority of the backyards. He even saw several large outdoor aquaculture systems—large fish tanks that fed hydroponic plants.

  Nowhere did he see telephone poles or power lines. Bill knew the reason for the former from his studies of the planet—everything was either buried fiber optic or cellular. As to the power, he knew that it was a combination of renewables and nuclear, but he didn’t know why he couldn’t see any transmission lines. He figured that since Hayek used nuclear power, there must be some leading from the power plants to the cities, but none were visible.

  The few remaining passengers got off at the last stop in Milton. Nobody got in their car. The doors closed, and the train began its final leg to the base.

  Leaving the city was quite sudden. The landscape went from urban to agriculture, with no extended suburbs. Bill could see orchards, vineyards, and some pasture with sheep grazing, but what he found noticeably different from the agriculture he was used to was the lack of cattle. Bill pointed out this to Matt.

  “Yeah, well, y’know Hayek limits cattle imports,” Matt said.

  “Pretty odd for a supposed libertarian society.”

  “Yep. But then again, it ain’t full-on anarchy-type libertarianism. They do have some rules. Guess they’re trying not to destroy this planet like people did on Earth.”

  “I bet you’re right. Probably trying to avoid ‘the tragedy of the commons’ type scenario,” Bill said.

  “Tragedy of the commons?”

  “You know, when everyone has free access to something so they use it as much as they can ‘til it’s gone. From an old story about cows on the common meadow in a town. Nobody owned it, and everyone wanted to maximize their gain, so they each put so many cows on it that all grass got eaten and the cows starved.”

  “Gotcha,” Matt replied.

  They rode in silence after that, watching the landscape pass by.

  After a while, Matt nudged him and said, “Hey, look at that!”

  Bill turned and saw what looked like an oversized drone with four propellers flying parallel to the train and slightly above it. This craft was actually carrying a person inside it. “Wow, an actual flying car!” he exclaimed.

  They watched the flying car until it veered off near the final stop.

  The fifteen-mile trip from the gate took less than fifteen minutes, even with the stops in Milton.

  The doors whooshed open. Bill and Matt stepped out on the platform, carts in tow, and were immediately assaulted by the heat. It must already have been in the low nineties, and it wasn’t even noon.

  They headed for the elevator’s open doors. At ground level, they stepped out and saw a large wooden sign that said: “Welcome to Corps of Discovery Sacajawea Base: New Probationary Members Check in at In-Processing.” A map was next to it showed the streets of the base. The streets were named, but the buildings only had numbers. A legend identified each building. The In-Processing building was listed as Number 2; headquarters was listed as Number 1.

  Before they could exit the skytrain station, though, they had to present a security guard their ID card before she opened the gate.

  Fortunately, the In-Processing building was adjacent to the train station, so there was little opportunity for the two men, or just about any Probie, to get lost.

  Bill and Matt made a beeline for the building. A Jeep was parked in front of the building. Bill thought it was a Willy’s CJ-3B, the old high-hood Jeep, but he thought, That can’t be. There weren’t that many produced on Earth, and most of those are trashed. This thing looks brand spanking new.

  Upon entry, they found, with great relief, that it was air-conditioned. The room was quite large, with a long counter bisecting the front from the back. The counter had signs suspended above it, breaking the alphabet down into eight sections of three letters each. Above all the signs was one stating “Last Name begins with…” Below each sign was a computer monitor and a card reader, identical to the ones they had already been exposed to. Bill headed for the spot under the ABC sign, while Matt headed for the GHI sign spot. Before either man made more than a couple of steps, a young Asian girl with short hair waved them over to the last sign. She was dressed in the Corps field uniform with only the sky-blue ribbon on her chest.

  “Just come on over here. Not much of a crowd, so I think I can handle the two of you,” she said. “Wait another couple of days, though. This place’ll start jumping.”

  After they arrived at the counter, she put them through the same ID check they’d been through several times already. “Well, it looks like you two are who you claim to be. Welcome to the Corps. I’m Amy Ito.”

  Bill nodded while Matt said, “Hi.”

  “Next step is to get you some housing,” Amy said. “After that, you’re free to do whatever you want. I, personally, suggest reading the Base Information pamphlet that you’ll find in your cabin, if you haven’t already read the one sent to you in the information packet. That’ll bring you up to speed on what’s what on base. Lunch in the Probie cafeterias starts at noon, so make your way to one and join the other Probies that came early. Some of the cadre will be there and glad to answer any questions you have.”

  “Great,” Bill said.

  “You guys want to room together?” Amy asked.

  Matt and Bill looked at each other, shrugged.

  “Sure,” Bill said.

  “Why not?” Matt agreed.

  “Great. Let me get you set up.”

  Amy typed for a minute, then inserted each man’s card into the card reader one final time before handing them back.

  “Okay. I’ve got you set up in a nice little four-bedroom cabin on Jaskey Lan
e. You’ll have two other roommates, who are already there, so don’t be surprised. You might want to announce yourself when you arrive. Your ID serves as your key, so don’t lose it. It’ll also grant you access to the safe in your room. You’ll want to reset the bio-code once you open it. And if you’ve got any firearms with you, I’d suggest storing them ASAP.”

  Amy picked up a map of the base and using a pink highlighter, marked the cabin’s location, along with the In-Processing building. She then highlighted the most direct route, which was about a quarter of a mile.

  “Just head up Floyd Boulevard until you get to Jaskey Lane, then turn left. The address is 117 Jaskey Lane, on the west side of the street. Any questions?”

  Bill asked, “Bio-code?”

  Amy said, “Yeah, your fingerprint. Most safes operate on bio-codes, either fingerprints, palm prints, eye scans, or DNA samples. We use fingerprints on base for personal safes.”

  Matt asked, “Where’s the closest cafeteria?”

  Amy highlighted it on the map.

  “Right here, at the corner of Floyd and Rosen. About two blocks from your cabin.”

  “Thanks, Amy,” Matt said.

  “What do we do with the carts once we’re done?”

  “Bring them back here after lunch. We’ll send them back to Earth for the next bunch of Probies.”

  Turning to Bill, Matt asked, “Well. Shall we?”

  Bill responded, “We shall” rather formally, with a quick nod of his head.

  The two men grabbed their carts, bade Amy farewell, and headed back out into the hot sunshine of Sacajawea Base.

  117 Jaskey Lane looked like a small, two-story board-and-batten cabin from rural Washington. It sat almost on the sidewalk in front of it, with three broad steps leading up to a small porch. On the porch was a double-wide swing and two Adirondack-style chairs, and a couple of small tables.

  Bill took the lead. Dropping the handle of his cart, he walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell. He heard motion inside, and the door was shortly thereafter opened by a black man, obviously in his early twenties, and just as obviously trying to grow a mustache. He was similar in stature to Matt, short and lean.