“Also Amy says my music collection is worth billions.”
Levin Simmons approached. Jim looked up. Levin glanced at his pad. “Jim, I’ve got a couple of things I’d like you to identify for us.”
Levin was a pure academic, totally preoccupied with whatever undertaking he happened to be working on at the time. Humor tended to escape him except when it applied to a small piece of trivia in his exact field of study. Occasionally Jim became somewhat annoying when he pestered him for specific details. He wanted to know everything about every object in Jim’s possession, use, date of manufacture, reliability, reparability and how common it was in Jim’s society.
Jim stood. “Ok. Where are they?”
Doris stood and walked off in the direction of the control room door. “I’ll see how the war stories are going.”
Levin led Jim to a stack of boxes. They were marked ‘Kitchen’. He picked up a cordless electric mixer from the top of an open box. Delicately removing the protective paper wrapping, he handed it to Jim. “This object is the problem. It looks like a power tool, but you had it in a kitchen utensils box.”
“It’s an egg beater.”
“You used it just to beat eggs?”
“Not really. I call it an egg beater; I think most people called it a mixer. The beaters are in here somewhere.”
Jim bent over to search the box. As he started rummaging, he heard a mild gasp from Levin. “Didn’t the biologists pull all this stuff out?”
“Oh yes, but they replaced things exactly as they found them.”
Jim continued to search, a little slower and more carefully.
“Here they are.”
Unwrapping the blades, he dropped the paper wrapper on the floor. He then snapped them into place on the mixer. Levin picked up the paper, carefully placing it on a bench; he took great effort not to disturb the wrinkles and creases.
“You put these in here,” Jim said, waving the appliance.
“Just a moment.” Levin fumbled in his belt and retrieved an object about the same size and shape as an old cigarette pack. He spoke into it. “Item three five seven. Mixer, some times known as egg beater. Installation of attachments.” He then held it close to the mixer. “Would you do that again please?”
Jim pressed the eject button then snapped the blades back into place. “Now let’s see if there’s any power in the thing.” He flipped the switch with his thumb to the low setting. It whirred as the blades rapidly revolved. Levin flinched. “Hey, it works.”
“I would not want you to damage it.” Levin raised the pad which he had been holding under his arm and made an entry.
Jim grinned. “Don’t worry. It’s still under warranty.” Jim thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, the warranty expired two thousand years ago.” He switched it off.
“One moment. Dr. Mobray wants to see it in operation.” Levin plugged the video device into his pad and made another entry.
“There’s someone else following this?”
“Oh yes,” Levin said, glancing at the pad again. “Thirty two scientists and engineers are watching everything I enter.”
“Good heavens, sounds like when the first man landed on the moon.”
“You saw that... ah... Mr. Armstrong land? On T.V. I suppose?”
“No, I wasn’t born then.”
Levin looked at the entries he had just made on his pad, swelling with satisfaction. “For us, you have solved a mystery that has existed for many years. We finally know what this thing does.”
“What? You’ve seen one of these before?”
“Oh yes. We have what’s left of three of them. They were found at landfills in England, Sweden and the United States. I attended a 3V symposium to discuss five different items found. There were many suggestions as to their use, this one in particular. We decided it was not a power tool for woodworking or metal. It has a case that’s too thin to stand up to that sort of work. The best guess we could make was that it was a polisher used to apply a protective coating to wooden furniture. Of course if we had those attachments you have there, it would’ve made things a lot easier.” Levin chuckled to himself then changed to a muted more confidential voice. “One member suggested that it might be an apparatus for auto or mutual sexual eroticism. It was I who destroyed his theory. By counting the turns of wire on the armature and configuration of the battery, I calculated the power it would’ve generated, far too much for a device of that nature.”
Jim’s eye’s opened wide as he looked at the mixer. A pained expression crossed his face. “I should think so.” He scrutinized the device for a minute then burst out laughing. “Maybe in San Francisco?” he muttered.
“There are other things we want to know about.” Levin pointed at a metallic object in a box containing cutlery. “That, we believe, is an implement used for opening metal food containers.” He looked up at Jim. “Please correct me if I’m wrong on any of these.” Jim nodded. “That’s a vegetable peeler. They were found in a number of landfills. We also know of them from the early days of the colonies, but what is this?” He picked out a long, irregularly shaped piece. “We’ve never seen one like this before.”
“I have no idea. My wife put it in the drawer years ago. I didn’t know what it was so I just left it there.”
“I guess it’s going to have to remain a mystery.” Levin made further entries on his pad before waving the video camera over it.
“You say some of these things were found in landfills. You like playing in garbage?”
“Oh yes. That’s where we find just about everything. If it’s not recycled that’s where all things go. It’s rare that we find anything at the site of an old dwelling. Too exposed, destroyed years ago.”
Jim was amused. “Yes, but what on earth can you tell from a pile of garbage?”
“Oh, everything,” Levin said. “Social attitudes, political events, levels of technology. The very essence of a people can be read from what they throw away.”
“Political events? How can you tell what happened? Do you find old newspapers?”
“No, we never find things like that. They’ve been totally degraded years ago, but it’s quite easy and many of our guesses have been confirmed as true by your encyclopedia. Here is one example: In a number of landfills in the United States we found a layer, dated from 1942AD to 1945AD, almost void of metal, textiles and waste kitchen fat. The absence of metal and textiles could mean an economic recession but kitchen fat, with the technology that existed at the time, it would have gone to make explosives. From that we concluded that a war had occurred. By examining the contents of landfills in other countries we found the same.
“Other absences were also noted, in particular, the complete lack of traces of phosphate fertilizer in the landfills of Germany, Italy, and Japan. It takes a certain set of geographical conditions to produce that commodity so we thought that something must have cut off the source. There was no such absence in America, England, Canada, and Australia. From our knowledge of the origins of certain products we correctly guessed the sides of the combatants, as well as the dates they entered the conflict. Landfills cover and protects things; they give us an extremely accurate progression of history. This is not so on the Martian colonies, very few landfills.”
“Mars? Why didn’t everyone go there? It’s closer.”
“We can only speculate on that. The surface has large areas of radiation contamination. A war with early nuclear weapons took place there soon after the Exodus. Our only theory is that the colonists fought over its limited resources. Too many groups wanted sole possession of the easiest planet to colonize.”
Levin looked down at his pad for a moment. “Oh yes. A professor from Nexus keeps asking me for information on...”
“Hold it, hold it. Enough for now,” Jim said.
“But I still have…”
“Good heavens, give a guy a break.”
“Mr. Young?” called a technician. “The media department called again about those boxes of mag
netic video tapes. The ones that were in your food freezing appliance. They are again asking if you will sit down with them and go over each one.”
“Hell!” Jim exclaimed. “When I’ve got the time! I don’t even know what’s in those boxes. They were given to me by a friend.”
“The media department is quite insistent.”
“Look. Tell them they are from a collection of movies that were made forty years before I was born. Descriptions of the films and actors are probably in the encyclopedia.”
“Jim...” Jim turned his head toward the sound of Doctor Redmond’s voice. “We’ve just received your V-mail.”
“Ah... I think I saw a pad around here somewhere.” Jim was shown how a small cylindrical pellet known as a style could be plugged into a pad and the text information viewed.
“They’re not styles Jim. Two thousand of those have already arrived. I’m afraid you’re going to need a secretary. With V-mail you sit in the 3V room and view the sender talking. There are only one hundred and thirty of those.”
“Ok, where’s the room? I haven’t seen the one in this building yet.”
Jim passed two technicians from antiquities restoration who were working on an old broken clock radio spread out over a portable work bench. One tech was sitting on a portable chair, the other standing. On the way past, Jim grabbed a paint splattered kitchen chair he used to keep in the garage then placed it next to the standing man. “Make yourself comfortable, have a seat.”
The technician looked down at the chair, then up at Jim with an expression of horror on his face. “Oh..... Oh.... ah..... I can not.....”
“Ok, suit yourself.” Jim turned, threw his hands in the air and continued to walk. He was getting tired of the reverence with which these people treated his garbage.
Redmond stopped at the door of the 3V room. He stood aside, allowing Jim to enter.
“Aren’t you coming in to show me how? Haven’t read any mail on one of these things yet.”
“Private mail, just go in and talk to the computer.”
Jim entered. It was a normal, single seat 3V room. He sat.
“Mail please?”
“Your voice print reads, Mr. James Young. There are one hundred and thirty four entries, do you wish to use the search function?” came the usual female voice from nowhere.
“No... ah... just start anywhere.”
“Entry number sixty three. Sender Lars Seymore.”
A man seated on a similar chair appeared in front of Jim began to speak. He was the producer of a 3V talk show requesting Jim as a guest, at a fee payment of ten thousand G. When finished, the man, as well as the chair disappeared. The computer voice returned.
“Return mail paid. Do you wish to reply?”
“Ah... yes.”
Jim made a brief apology; together with an ‘I’ll get back with you later’.
An hour later Jim had listened to four talk show requests, eight offers of cash for a product endorsement and eleven pleas from historians for information. One of them made him sit and think for a few minutes before sending a carefully worded reply. It was a proposal of marriage from a woman who told him, in graphic detail, how she could update his knowledge of current love making practices.
The one that amused him the most was a man who told him that he knew the name of his last ancestor on Earth. The name was Richard Ames from Cleveland Ohio and he asked Jim if he had known Richard.
It was the twenty fifth entry that made him sit bolt upright. The sender’s name was given as Senator James Mayer. Two crossed flags bearing the stars and stripes were behind a man in a vaguely Old Earth style business suit sitting at a desk. He spoke:
“Sergeant Young. The government of New Columbia welcomes you to our time. We hope that you and your family are well and enjoying yourselves.
“Sergeant, you may or may not have been informed that this government has been declared the legitimate successor to the United States government. This was done in the court decision New Columbia vs. the Mon Hong Corporation in 1748 AE. We understand that you are a serving member of the United States Army, and that you were never officially discharged. As you are probably anxious to complete your military obligations we have opened up a position in the Headquarters Section of the First Ground Forces Division of the new Columbia Home Guard. This position is accompanied by a promotion to Master Sergeant. So, consider this V-mail as your official orders to report for duty. A liaison is being sent to assist in the transportation of you, your family and personal effects to your new assignment. Again Sergeant Young, welcome.”
Jim sprinted from the room. “Doc! Doc! I’ve been drafted!”
* * *
Four hours had passed since the receipt of Jim’s V-mail. Jim and Jason Cobb sat in the 3V room waiting for a direct connection with New Columbia. A second chair was retrieved from an almost invisible cupboard behind them.
“Jason, hope you can get me out of this. I’ve had enough strain put on me just learning about life here. I don’t want to have to learn a new job as well.”
“No problem. They do have a good legal position, but I have a few things to throw their way.”
“But New Columbia is another planet. Do you know their laws?”
“The Union of English Speaking Planets has a common legal system. The laws there are the same as here. They also have to go by the laws that existed at the time of your last reenlistment contract.”
“How do you know what laws existed back then?”
“I’ve had six legal reps going through those books you have on military regulations and laws since you pulled them off that truck vehicle. We know more than the New Columbians.”
“Link established, bi-directional transmission will begin in three minutes,” the computer announced.
Jason turned in his seat. “You do know what they’re really after?”
Jim nodded. “I believe so, and it’s not my services as a Master Sergeant. They were one of the governments that voted to keep the discussion going over my stuff, weren’t they?”
“Yes, another was the Selby system. Their trade ties make them dependant on the French Federation. I would say that some intimidation guaranteed their vote. The New Colombians probably wanted to have your property secured until they got their hands on it.”
“What for? Do you think they’d try to confiscate everything?”
“No, just having you on their planet would be financially advantageous. Taxing your income alone would bring them needed revenue as well as the businesses you’re starting. The New Columbian government is noted for its debt problems. They’re continually going to the Commonwealth for loans and grants.”
Jim fidgeted nervously until the image of the senator appeared in front of them. “Sergeant Young, how nice to see you.”
“Senator,” Jim replied.
“What can I do for you, are things going well?”
“Just fine Senator. I’d like you to meet my legal representative Mr. Cobb. There’re a few points I’d like to clear up about my reporting for duty.”
“Mr. Cobb, how can I be of assistance?” returned the Senator with a smile.
With the attention taken from him, Jim had the opportunity to look around the Senator’s office. It was a familiar style: mahogany paneling, old wooden desk. Behind the Senator, on either side of the flags, were ageing pictures, all of which he recognized. From left to right were President Carter, President Bush, President Kennedy and actor George Burns. Jim decided that their placement was a ploy, a psychological move to give them validity in Jim’s mind. The effect missed the mark somewhat due to the inclusion of a famous actor in the line up of presidents. It was obvious that these people knew little of the government that Jim had sworn allegiance to. That fact separated the two in Jim’s mind. This man before him was not a representative of the United States Government he knew.
Jason matched the Senator’s smile before beginning the exchange. “Senator, your government is calling Mr. Young to duty under the terms of
his enlistment. Is this correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“That enlistment is covered by the laws that existed at that time?”
“Yes, as well as the more recent laws that went into effect after the government’s transfer to New Columbia.”
The man’s voice and manner were full of self-assurance. He sat casually leaning to one side supported by an elbow on the arm of his chair.
Jason continued. “Mr. Young furnished me with copies of the military regulations of the time. It comes in several volumes; I have picked out the applicable sections. Would you open your transfer pad so I could send them to you?”
The Senator picked up a pad from the right side of his desk and placed it in front of him. “It’s open.”
Jason made an entry on his pad then looked up. “Would you read the section coming through now regarding servicemen involuntarily detained by a foreign power? I am sure you will concede that the alien device that involuntarily detained Mr. Young was foreign.”
“Ah, go on.”
“By the way Senator, as this is a legal council session this call is being recorded for my records. More coming up Senator....” Jason again touched the controls on his pad. “As you can see, this section involves the extension of enlistment if detention by the foreign power exceeds the time of his current enlistment. Note that there is a forfeiture of pay clause if the serving member was at fault. That is, if he himself brought about that detention by committing a crime or something of that nature, but I do not think it applies in this case. Mr. Young was not at fault.”
The Senator’s eyes glanced up and down the pad on his desk. “I can... ah... see that section.”
“Well, it seems to me that as Mr. Young has been a serving member, in good standing, for a little under two thousand years, he is entitled to back pay.”
“As I understand it, Sergeant Young entered then exited the device as if no time had elapsed,” the Senator replied, still smiling.
“The legal precedent on this is a class action suit, Zutterstein versus the Kent Corporation. There where three workmen accidentally trapped in a cryogenics chamber for eighteen months. They felt as if no time had elapsed, but were awarded back pay.”
The Time Stone (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 13
