A fourth object was extracted before the C-123 raised its nose and increased speed. The aircraft circled around, gaining altitude, and eventually, regurgitating another pallet of equipment and number of parachutes attached to people.
“Engineers,” Jordan said.
Within minutes, the pallet and three engineers were on the ground. After unstrapping themselves from their parachutes, they approached the four Explorers.
The spokesman was a grizzled veteran in his late twenties.
“Who’s in charge?” he asked.
All eyes turned toward Bill.
“Guess I am,” he said.
The engineer approached Bill, hand outstretched.
“Ken Schmitt.”
“Bill Clark,” Bill said, grasping the hand.
“Well, Bill. Let’s get you guys outa here and home.”
Bill couldn’t say anything for a moment due to the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. Finally, he was able to say, “That’d be mighty fine.”
Looking at the two women, Ken nodded. “Ma’ams. We’ll have you back on Hayek shortly.” Then he turned to the engineers and practically shouted, “What are you guys doing standing here? We got a runway to build!”
Minutes later, both the bulldozer and steamroller were in operation.
The Caribou had left the area, returning to wherever it had come from.
“Wow,” Meri said. “To think, they’re doing this for us.”
Jordan gave her a long look. “The Corps doesn’t leave anyone behind if they can help it.”
Ken explained that a rough airfield would be ready to accept a Caribou the next day and that the priority was to evacuate them as soon as possible.
The engineers had jumped with their primary gear, along with extra food rations.
“May not be good, but it’ll keep you alive,” Ken said as they ate around the fire in the evening. Bill was kind enough to offer the engineers some bison, which they gratefully accepted. In kind, he gratefully accepted their field rats.
In less than twenty-four hours, the engineers had an operational airfield in place. Of course, the concept of “operational” probably wasn’t one that would suffice on Earth, unless one was operating in Laos during the Vietnam War. The dirt runway had been scraped from the prairie, and flattened as much as possible with the road roller. It was barely over 200 meters long.
Another twenty-four hours later, the first Caribou landed on the makeshift airfield. It braked, turned, and circled back to the waiting people at the other end of the field, blowing dust into their faces and grit into their teeth. As it came to a halt, the rear ramp lowered. An older man stepped down the ramp onto the beaten ground.
As he walked toward the small gathered group, Meri clearly recognized him. Handing Jack to Bill, she took off running toward him, her rifle banging against her back. She practically jumped into his open arms, hugging him and burying her face into his shoulder. He hugged her back. Even from the distance of almost a hundred meters, Bill could see the man’s shoulders shaking from sobs. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder and cradling Jack, he, Karen, and Jordan, followed in Meri’s steps.
The man Meri was embracing was the Commandant of the Corps of Discovery, Jack Lewis. Also known as Meri’s father, and now Bill’s father-in-law, and the grandfather of little Jack.
As the group approached him, Jack let go of Meri and held out his hand to Bill, wiping tears from his face with his other hand. “Bill, damned glad to see you.”
“You too, sir,” Bill said, taking the outstretched hand in his now-callused palm.
Releasing his hand, the Commandant reached out to Karen.
“Karen,” he said as she took his hand.
“Commandant,” Karen replied.
Still holding her hand, he covered it with his other one. “You’ll be glad to know that we notified Tran as soon as we heard. He and your son are being brought over so they can meet you when we land at the IP.”
Big tears began to flow from Karen’s eyes, and she grasped the Commandant in a fierce hug. Bill’s eyes watered and a lump formed in his throat as he watched Karen sob once more.
Letting go of her after what seemed an eternity, Lewis looked around the small encampment. “Well, let’s get that bird loaded and get you guys home.” It was then he noticed the bundle in Bill’s left arm.
“Say, who’s this guy?” he asked.
Meri took Jack from Bill’s arm, and said, with a great deal of pride, “Dad, meet your grandson, Jack. Jack, this is your grandfather.”
Lewis’s eyebrows went up. He looked from Jack to Meri, and then to Bill. “I thought maybe Karen was the mom,” he said, more in the way of a question than a statement.
“Bill and I decided to get married when we thought we might not make it back,” Meri explained. “And, well, let’s just say that the birth control implants clearly aren’t one hundred percent effective,” she finished with a rueful smile.
“Wow. Just wow,” said Lewis. “Well, hello there, young man,” he said to little Jack. Jack yawned in return.
“Well, let’s not tarry any longer, Lewis said. “Lots of people waiting to see you three — excuse me, you four,” the last directed at little Jack. “So, let’s not hold them up any longer.”
Turning to Schmitt, he said, “Ken, leave the construction equipment here for now. We’ll bring it back later. Your guys can either stay with it or come back now, though. Your choice.” Turning to the flight crew chief and his assistant, both of whom had joined the group while the Commandant was greeting the found survivors, he said, “Help gather up anything the Trekkers want taken back to Hayek.”
Jack turned to Bill and asked, “What do you want brought back?”
“We’ll carry our survival equipment, but it’d be great if they brought the bison blankets, and the canoe,” Bill said. “We had a wikiup, but we used the wood for firewood. We’ve also got a bigger catamaran stashed away on the east coast, that the Corps might be interested in. Got us from the Med to Ti’icham.”
“Make it happen,” Lewis said to the air crew, who promptly went to where the canoe was beached on the riverbank. Lewis’s comment made Bill smile, thinking about how Karen used to imitate that guy from that old spaceship television show.
“Let’s break down the hobbit-hole,” Bill said to Meri and Karen, the latter of whom had finally composed herself and was no longer crying. “It’ll be faster since we know what we’re doing, and I’d like to get out of here asap.”
“Dad, could you hold Jack while we get our stuff?” Meri asked her father.
Holding out his arms, he said, “I’d be honored.”
As he took Jack in his arms, Lewis softly spoke to him. “Hey there, little guy, I wish your grandmother was alive to meet you. You’d have loved her.”
That statement brought a wistful look to Meri’s face. Her mother had died while she was a toddler; she had no real recollections of her. Bill’s mom had died when he was six. He still remembered how much he had cried at her funeral, so he empathized with Meri.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes to pack everything and get it loaded into the Caribou. Prior to loading the canoe, the crew removed the emergency flitter, putting it adjacent to the one Jordan had landed. The crew chief explained that they would retrieve it when they came back for the runway building equipment.
The pilot and co-pilot exited the craft at that point, and Bill was introduced to them by the Commandant.
“This young man is a great pilot and explorer, despite being a pain in my ass for too many years to count,” Lewis said as he introduced the pilot, Brad Maeda.
“Are you still pissed about that?” Brad asked Jack, smiling. “Hell, you woulda done the same thing.”
“Yeah, maybe. But you got Meri involved. I wouldn’t have done that.”
Brad shrugged, and Bill raised his eyebrows, questioningly.
“Meri helped me go through a gate and run my own private rescue mission back when we were i
n high school,” Brad told him.
“Hmph,” Lewis grunted. “Used her as a spy, you mean.”
“Intel, sir. Aren’t you the one who keeps harping on about gaining all the intel you can?”
Lewis didn’t say anything.
The canoe took a bit longer, as the mast and sail had to be removed. Bill first thought they’d have to remove the outrigger, but the Caribou’s interior space proved big enough that they were able to load it without doing so. They put it in on a diagonal, so the outrigger, which was against the bulkhead, was a meter or so above the canoe, which rested on the Caribou’s deck. The crew made sure it was safely secured.
“Last thing we need is a loose canoe in here,” the crew chief said as he tightened the straps.
After everything was loaded in the front of the cargo section of the plane, the human cargo boarded. Web seats had been set up against the bulkheads so that passengers could sit, albeit not very comfortably. That was the problem with being considered supernumerary cargo.
Unlike commercial flights, the Caribou had both seat belts and shoulder harnesses. The only one to not buckle in was little Jack, who was held by his mother. The crew chief visited each passenger, ensuring they were properly buckled in, then worked his way through the spaces left by the canoe, poked his head into the cockpit, and announced that all were secured and they could take off.
The engines were started, and soon they were roaring, a great thundering noise that the three Trekkers hadn’t experienced for almost a year.
Conversation in the noisy Caribou wasn’t easy. You had to shout to be heard, so there was very little talking during the flight. Despite the noise, Bill took the time and effort to describe to Lewis the situation on Planet 42 regarding sentient life.
The Corps recognizes three types of planets. A Class I planet is one that is similar to Earth or Hayek in terms of development by a sentient species, usually a human one. There were sub-classifications ranging from just entering the agriculture revolution to those civilizations whose technology surpassed Earth’s. A Class II planet has humans or hominids but hadn’t reached beyond the nomadic, tribal, hunter-gatherer stage. Both classes were off limits to exploitation, and settlement. Only Class III planets, those without any sentient beings, were open for discovery.
This edict dated back to the time of the gate’s inventor, Dr. Tim Bowman. Bowman didn’t want a repeat of 1492 Earth, where European explorers “found” America, leading to the death of approximately ninety percent of its population from imported diseases. He said, “I couldn’t live with that on my soul.”
When Bill was going through the Corps’ orientation after finishing Basic Militia Training, he remembered Commandant Lewis saying, “Our primary objective is to survey new parallel planets to ensure that no other humans or hominids exist there before opening them to settlement. That is our number one priority! Anything beyond that is just pure gravy.”
Upon hearing Bill’s report, Lewis said, “Well, crap. There goes a shitload of money. But if what you say is true, we’re gonna have to shut this operation down asap.”
“It’s true.” He pulled a stone point from a pocket and handed it to the Commandant. “We found this near our crash site. We also saw a bunch of hominids, we think they were Neanderthals, at Gibraltar.”
Lewis turned the stone point in his hand, clearly recognizing it as a Paleolithic tool.
“Pretty strong evidence,” he finally said, closing his hand around the point and leaning back in his seat, as if both relieved of a burden and hit by disappointment.
46
Had the Trekkers tried to continue their journey up the Missouri, then up the Clark Fork, and finally down the Snake and Columbia Rivers (Bill still thought of them in Earth terms), it would have taken three or more months. And that was if the snow was cleared from the passes in the numerous mountain ranges they would have had to cross. Bill had experienced a small avalanche while skiing at Washington State’s Crystal Mountain Resort once while going to school at the University of Washington. It wasn’t something he wanted to ever repeat, so he was glad to be flying over the snow-capped mountains, rather than trying to wend his way through them on foot.
As it was, the Caribou got them to the IP in less than two days. Total flying time was six hours, but the late start from their encampment meant they had to stop for the night en route. One simply does not try to land a plane in the dark on a supposedly uninhabited planet with little to no rescue services. They spent one night at a forward base in what Bill knew as Montana.
It was strange being hailed as heroes, despite the fact that all they had done was survive. Even stranger was the hot shower with unlimited water. Bill and the others had been using their portable hand-held showers that fit on their canteens for so long, they had almost forgotten what it was like to have more than a liter for a shower. Bill spent an eternity under the solar-heated water, rubbing off several months worth of grime. Of course, the dirt ground into his fingertip whorls wouldn’t come out for months, so he didn’t even bother to try and remove it. Nor the dirt under his fingernails.
Finally, Bill stopped the flow of water, grabbed the towel, and wiped himself dry. It was a far cry from what they had been doing while trekking. The feeling of actually being clean, not just not stinky, was wondrous. Then he got dressed in newer clothes. They weren’t exactly new; they belonged to one of the base occupants who gave them up so that Bill wouldn’t have to stay in the ragged, remnants of his uniform. It was strange putting on new clothes. They felt stiff, and the scent of the laundry detergent tickled his nose.
Dried and dressed, Bill went to the rec room, where his newly cleaned bride and son waited for him. Bill had taken over parental duties so Meri could wash up first. He wasn’t totally clueless.
The airfield was set up in the usual Corps fashion. There was a small control tower, an operations building with a combination mess hall and recreation room, a shower, and crew quarters. In the rec room, Meri, Jack, and Jack Lewis were sitting in a corner. Little Jack was in Big Jack’s lap, held in a protective grandparent bear hug.
Meri, red hair still wet from her shower, was sipping on a drink, clearly one of the daily tots the Corps provided to Explorers in the field. Along with coffee, that was one of the things about civilization that Bill had missed. Well, that and showers. And cooked meals. And clean sheets. He stopped that train of thought.
As Bill joined them, Lewis asked, “What’s your poison?”
He thought for a second. “I’m not sure. I’d like a beer, but I also wouldn’t turn down a whiskey.” Even though he was still in his early twenties, Bill had developed a taste for whiskey on his first survey. The Corps only issued a single tot to each Explorer for each evening, so he had to make up his mind between the two. Beer or whiskey?
Handing little Jack back to Meri, Lewis got up and said, “Allow me,” gesturing for Bill to take the seat near his.
“But I haven’t decided,” Bill said.
“That’s okay. Sit,” the commandant commanded.
Bill sat.
Within minutes, Lewis was back with a canteen cup and a small shot glass, handing both to Bill. “Here, you deserve it.”
The cup contained beer, one made by mixing local water with a beer concentrate. The shot glass contained whiskey.
“Thanks!” Bill took a sip of the beer first. The first sip led to a second, and the second led to a deep draught. Bill let out a sigh. “Man, that tastes good.”
Meri giggled, holding up her cup to toast with him. Bill then noticed that an empty shot glass was on the table next to her.
Lewis sat down, once again taking Jack from Meri. Jack, sound asleep, didn’t even acknowledge the hand-off.
The small group was shortly joined by the area commander, Dave Cheng. Bill and Meri had worked under him on Zion when he was the area commander for the Caribbean surveys. The native Californian of Hmong descent raised his glass to the couple. Briefly overcome with emotion, it took him a minute to say, “D
amn glad you’re here.”
“Us, too,” Meri said.
“Well, supper’s almost ready. You guys hungry?”
“Starved,” said Bill.
“Just as long as it’s not bear or bison stew, I am,” Meri added.
After drinks and a supper that consisted of a lot of potatoes and vegetables with spices that made them drool as the scent filled their nostrils, and what seemed like several hours telling the tale of their trek, the Trekkers were shown to their sleeping quarters. These were typical Corps field operations: four walls, a roof, and posts to string hammocks from. On the posts were adjustable LED lights so one could read while lying down, and a single outlet for charging electrical devices. There was also a small table with four folding chairs. A light was above the table. All the electricity came from solar panels on the roof, or if there was a creek or river nearby, a small water-powered turbine. Bill and Meri had stayed in similar quarters on their first parallel planet survey on Zion.
Their packs had been brought into the cabin, but they were still wearing the required survival equipment, and each had their personal rifle.
Bill and Meri looked around the spartan quarters, then at each other.
“You want to sleep in a hammock tonight?” Bill asked her.
She shook her head.
Turning back to Jordan, he asked, “Any way we can get some things off the ‘bou?”
“Sure,” Jordan said. “What you need?”
“A bunch of bison skins. We got kinda used to sleeping on them, and I somehow don’t think Jack would be too interested in trying out a hammock yet.”
“Let’s go,” Jordan replied.
It was dark outside, a bad time to be out on a strange planet, especially since some of the larger predators were nocturnal, so the two men took some time standing outside the door, letting their eyes adjust.
The trip out to the Caribou and back took only a few minutes, and nothing appeared out of the darkness to bother them. That didn’t mean nothing was out there. In the distance, Bill could hear wolves howling on one side of camp, and coyotes on the other.
The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history Page 50
