by Amelia Esla
Roy could not hide his feeling seeing Charles and even though it was not something a sixteen year old should do, he hugged Charles. “Good to see you too, Charles. Let me introduce Partner to you!”
“If one would be capable of the human emotion of surprise one would indeed be compelled to express astonishment to find you 4211.5 kilometers from the place of your last sighting. ” Charles head rotated towards Partner. “Is this Unit correct assuming that this life form is the Partner you speak off?”
Roy waved at Partner and the beast clawed itself with a few leaps up the rocks, leaving deep scratches in the hard stone surface and bumped into Charles.
Charles extended his upper main arm and formed a full hand, with it the Robot patted Partner. “The animal is non conform to any known life forms but it appears to be docile and well behaved. One needs instructions from its Master as to what pet care tasks are required to tend to it.”
Partner was enjoying the attention of the robot and had his eyes squeezed shut.
-“”-
Martha could not remember when she had slept that good. She had slept in Sam Brown’s Farm house, in a simple bed underneath an open window, separated from the outside world of Green Hell only by logs of Tantalus Oak and an active energy window screen. The wood gave off a scent somewhat reminiscent of pine wood and the window screen had buzzed only once all night. Sam called her to breakfast and she ate like a starving Stomper gorging herself on Sam’s pancakes with real Terran maple syrup, just before the sun was about to rise. She had noticed a photo viewer on Sam’s Cupboard with pictures of Roy form as small as when he was only six to very recent images making her realize just how much her son had grown. All the pictures showed Roy laughing or smiling doing things with Sam. Working with tools fixing Agricultural robots, shooting blasters, playing ball or wearing some ancient martial arts outfit sparring with the huge black man. All the things a father or a mother should have done.
Another picture showed the former President pinning a medal to Sam’s chest. To her astonishment the Immortal Admiral Stahl himself was in several pictures with his arm on Sam’s shoulder.
After breakfast he told her that Charles had detected a faint energy signature characteristic of a powered down Union PDD and identified the signature to the one Roy had.
Excited she followed Sam to a rugged Ford FarmAll Floater Truck. The Ford had heavy armor plates added that had the characteristic shimmer of Ultronit.
She completely forgot the suit. Somehow she felt safer with Sam than she would have wearing a real Quasimodo. “Where did Charles detect that?”
“Near the White Head Mountains.”
“That is impossible!” She exclaimed as Sam pulled the flyer into the air.” That is over 3000 kilometers. Perhaps some flying animal carried his PDD in its…” She didn’t want to say what she was thinking and tears ran down her face.
Sam ignored her tears and said harshly. “You keep using that word a lot, you know! The word has very little meaning in a Universe where almost anything seems possible one way or the other. You should cry about how you and that yellow belly piece of work you got for a husband raised that boy.”
He then felt sorry for snapping at her and added. “Roy is fine. Charles has located him and found him alive and unharmed.”
She still sobbed and the first tears had broken an invisible barrier inside her, and all the remnants of the cold detached scientist were washed away in a deluge of emotions.
Sam gunned the Flyer to its maximum speed and kept it as high as the old Ford could go, to avoid any life from collisions. He was a big man and hard as granite, tougher than a Pertharian according to the Marines who had served with him, but little kids, fuzzy Holdians and crying women always made him feel a little helpless a and he said. ” We will be there soon enough. There is nothing on Green Hell or within at lest a light years distance that could harm your son now. Not that it looked like he really needed any protection, robots don’t lie. Charles said he is fine.”
She wished for a simple kerchief or tissue and thankfully accepted as Sam held a tissue dispenser under her nose. After she cleaned her nose and tears she said . “Thank you Mr. Brown for taking care of Roy all these years and I am so sorry for ever thinking bad about you.”
-“”—
Roy was still puzzled about the strange woman and her sudden disappearance but he almost forgot her when Charles fired his main TKU in a wide focused beam and burned a stream of ants and reduced one of the moving rocks to ashes. He deemed to close for safety reasons. Roy was not sure if he should scold the robot or commend him for his diligence. The strange woman and Charles actions were forgotten as he saw Uncle Sam’s floater approaching. What made him to drop his chin to his chest in sheer disbelieve was the sight of his own mother jumping out of the close hovering Ford approach and hug him! She hadn’t hugged or really touched him for a very long time.
He could feel her wet cheeks against his and her thin arms pressing him with surprising strength and intensity to her chest. All he could hear her say was. “Sorry.” Over and over again.
Finally Roy said. “Mother, you are out without a suit?”
She held his face between her hands and smiled between her tears.. “Roy, I was so worried! I thought I lost you!”
He shrugged. “So? I was just in the way anyway and without me you and Dad have no distractions from your important projects.”
“Roy the last few days made me see things in a new way. I know Paul and I made some very bad decisions based on bad assumptions .”
The sudden motherly hug, something he unconsciously craved for so very long felt incredible comforting and strange at the same time. Part of him wanted to forgive and simply take in the moment while another part didn’t believe the sudden chance and the cynical, skeptical voice in him won, as he said. “You want to take Partner and dissect him, and all this is just some show they told you to put up for me so I come home.”
Roy swatted an Arrow wasp out of the air just before it could have hit his mother, Charles was already engaging the rest of the swarm. Not like the teenagers, but with blistering roars of his turbo flamer burning the wasps and anything else caught in the million degree plasma flames. Sam said.“Guys this is still Green Hell. Let’s continue this inside the Floater, or better at the ranch.”
Martha said.“Roy you don’t trust me but you trust Sam, so please come.”
Roy agreed, mostly because he saw an agitated Lighting Bolter coming their way, and that was only for starters as it seemed the whole jungle below was looking at them with extreme hostile intention and actually moving towards them. Even Roy had never seen Tantalus Oaks move yet one of the trees was creeping on its roots like a carpet of snakes slowly up the slope. From somewhere he heard the angry scream of a very big Water Snake. It was the strongest sense of danger he had felt so far. Unless Charles had to burn and kill everything that was approaching until he ran out of energy and lay waste to half the continent, he had to come along.
Charles and Partner found room on the flat bed cargo hold of the Ford and with Sam, Martha and Roy in the cab , the rugged flyer climbed into the sky. Something rocked the flyer hard and bluish energies played over the body Roy could hear the roar of Charles weapons twice and Sam curse; he turned to see a Lighting Bolter explode. Sam grinned and said. “I don’t think the critters around these parts have been disturbed by outsiders much.”
Martha was visibly shaken.” I would have died if you didn’t swat the Wasp! Are you alright?”
Roy looked at his hand and nodded. “Yes Ma’am.” He didn’t look at her. He felt confused about his mother and her so uncharacteristic behavior.” You are my mother, right? Not some Avatar or did you get Psycho Surgery or something?”
She stared at his lowered head and said. “No Roy I am your mother and I spend all night at Mr. Brown’s house. We talked till very late and I am beginning to see what I was blind about for so long.
I was a young girl once and actually forgot my own moth
er over my obsession, not so much with science but with my career. That was and is wrong but I can’t chance over night or make up so many years in just a few month we have left together.” She sighed and caressed his hair that was colored exact like hers.” You can keep your pet and I won’t harm a hair on its body. We go to town today and have Ranger Solomon sign your pet license. You can keep Charles of course and we will go to Harper’s Junction to remove my brother and make Sam Brown your godfather so you can call him Uncle legitimately.”
Sam nodded with his trade mark grin. “As she said we had a long talk. I told you, everything works out one way or the other eventually.”
Roy was not sure if he had died in the cave and this was all still a dream. He said. “And I can go outside?”
“I doubt we could keep you in if we wanted to. I still try to understand it all, but I have seen you outside and you survive as if it was child-splay.”
Sam said. “How did you manage to get all the way to the Mountains, did someone give you a ride or something?”
Roy didn’t want to spill the beans about Partners abilities just yet, he did not trust his mother completely yet and said. “Yes someone gave me a ride alright.”
Sam grunted. “Those damn Swanson boys, they do anything for you. Should have thought about it right away.”
Since Sam didn’t phrase it as a question, Roy didn’t feel he needed to correct his friend. At least not before his mother.
-“”—
PART 3
Phil Decker pushed his hat back and scratched his hair line as he had done countless times in his very long live and with his other hand in his coat pocket he turned from the carnage and destruction before him and said to the tall woman standing a few feet behind him. “Roast me an Ult if that was done by Shiss pirates.”
The tall woman brushed a silver strand of hair out of her face the wind kept blowing back. “When I heard legendary Phil Decker was in a system nearby I could not resist and put in a call. I am just a little precinct Commandant and just a Lieutenant at that, and HQ hinted they want this case closed and filed deep before the begin of Union week.”
The man in the somewhat anachronistic outfit knelt down next to the skeletized remains of half a human hand, the rest had been burned. “Deep enough so no news hound or sensationalist can dig it up, and make a stink before the entire Assembly, maybe even call for war against the Shiss.”
The Saresii woman in the dark blue uniform of a Union Police Officer watched Decker with great interest. Very few knew he existed, or better still existed.
He was just like Stahl or McElligott, one of the Immortals and he had been a police man, a detective in an Earth city called New York long before even the Saresii had shown themselves.
He waved at one of the forensic robots and said. “Tin-head over here, collect this hand for me.”
The robot immediately responded floated across the rain soaked charred ground of what once had been a Penal colony settlement and collected the bones with machine efficiency.
He pointed at a few black streaks and said. “Tin-head,make sure you record and measure all the charred marks. I eat my fedora if whoever did this didn’t use Bolter Gatlings. Streaks set at exactly two fingers with, and then evenly arched across the field by someone very strong but not a robot. Perhaps a SII Fafnyr or a Enroe Firestorm. ”
She came over knelt next to him into the muck and only now could she see what he saw. He was kneeling exactly where one of the shooters had stood the slight depressions the blasts made with each turn of a Gatling barrel where clearly visible. She said. “Weeks of rain almost obliterated any evidence, any traces and clues and yet you find something. Now I believe everything they say about you, Mr. Decker. I am humbled!”
He smiled at her. “Call me Phil, Celyciia. I never liked this hero worship stuff and special attention. I am just a cop , always have been and as long as I can always will be. Don’t believe half of it, try to find evidence for the rest and forget most of it.”
“What else have you observed about this case then?”
“This is the fourth of the settlements we seen so far, but only this one was destroyed from the ground. Whatever they were after was here.”
“The Penal Colonies records show that there was a yellow throat Shiss here and that would then support all the other evidence that it was a Shiss raid after all. ” She sighed. “The faint engine trails, Shiss Disabler Drones, the bribe for the Warden coming from a Credit box we know has been stolen in a Shiss raid. So I guess HQ was right and I dragged you out here for nothing.”
He got up his nice trousers completely caked with mud. “Why did you?”
“Drag you out here?” She shrugged. “It is really true, I did hear you were at Suraman Colony and since this Penal Colony and Suraman are all within my precincts jurisdiction...”
He shook his head. “Barley anyone remembers me , certainly not a young real Saresii woman from the first World.”
She gestured around. “It doesn’t add up Phil. This is overkill, yes the Shiss could have been angry and they are vicious and maybe the Yellow throat was really pissed and ordered them to take it out on the others here, but then why bribe the Warden and not kill him too? They had the fire power to do it for certain and then there are a few other things that simply don’t feel right.”
Once again he waved at one of the robots and said. “Hey Tin head. I want aerials from this island, millimeter scale and then get me a ground radar image and look for matter compression. Something had landed here and used Landing struts.”
Celyciia enjoyed her own amazement and then raised one of her eyebrows. “How did you know I am from Prime One and no Human Terran not even a Saresii can really tell who is female and who is not!”
He answered her while watching the robot ascent into the sky to make the birds eye visual scans. “I am still waiting for all my answers. Still your turn and then I tell you why it is easy to tell real women from Saresii disguised men apart, even after they had a million years of practice.”
She said with a sigh. “Because I needed help and because my academy instructor always quoted you and told us about the old Gumshoe from Earth and the great detective. When I called BRUCE to see who is in the area I really could not believe when it told me that you were on Suraman.”
The robot descended and reported. “Confirming Soil compression spots. Nine points located now covered with mud and water.”
“I guess you made detailed 3D impression scans of the exact shape of the landing plates?”
“Affirmative.”
“No sense of hurrying things . Make detailed micro scans of the depression areas for lubricants or sealants, excavate the depressions to preserve them as evidence. ”
While the robot turned to execute the orders he Saresii woman asked. “Why taking the depressions?”
“The exact shape of the landing gear might tell us the manufacturer of the ship. The dirt underneath the struts is from before the attack and there is a slim chance that the ship transferred some material, a bug or something from another world and deposited it here. Telling us where it might have been before and when we catch these murderers we can compare the dirt in their landing gear and proof it came from this place.”
She smiled deeply. “You know what, Phil. I begin to feel we might catch them after all and I eat your Fedora, whatever that is, if this has been done by Shiss.”
“My hat, the Fedora is my hat and I think neither you nor me need to eat it anytime soon. When we are done here we going to grill the Warden .”
She blinked. “He is Thauran but he is humanoid and I had no idea you would resort to torture or cannibalism!”
-“”"-
Harlex had no idea where they were. He was never a spacer, some of them he heard could tell where they were in the Galaxy just by looking outside a space ship window and compare constellations in relation to the Galactic core or something like that, at least that is how Captain Ironfist on the Starblazer always did it. His former
and as it looked like future partner in crime had not spared attention to make him feel welcome.
The yacht was stocked with the finest liquors and real glass bottles with traditional made Whiskey. There was a light year wide difference between the 24 year old Dalwhinnie he was slowly swirling in the heavy bottom glass he was holding and the gut burning booze Napha used to sell. He wondered if good whiskey and the possibility of a fat credit box was worth being on the side of a mass murderer.
He watched the silver blue swirls of thick smoke of the cigar he nursed with careful slow drags and was certain whatever he had to do whatever these Employers needed done was something very sinister and that they would not let anything or anyone stop them. The Yacht had everything to make a long trip very pleasurable, he enjoyed a king sized vari-grav cloud bed in a spacious cabin and there was an infinity pool at the ships aft with a breath taking view of deep space while taking a plunge.
It was here,at the pool where watched the smoke of his cigar and between the fast dissipating wafts of aromatic smoke he made sure he did see as much about Ieshia Yeager as he could. She was swimming and just climbed out of the water, in a white bathing suit that was made nearly transparent by the water and most certainly chosen by the woman for exact that feature of the fabric.
It left very little for his imagination as to visualize as how she might look without any fabric but it did lot for his other fantasies. He was a man after all, and he had spend the last 5 years with nothing for acceptable sexual companionship as is hands or Guilly the guy who operated the big mushroom stem saw and didn’t mind acting like a girl for some attention.
They had kept the women separate to make sure nothing happened in terms of pregnancies. As it wold be unfair to a child to be born into a prison colony.
Ieshoia came closer with a sway of fluid hip motions and said with a smoky voice. “I am included in the benefits if you do your part right.”
His body wanted nothing more than to accept her invitation but his mind was not completely switched of just yet and he asked. “What is my part? What could I do to pay for all this?”
