To Wake the Living (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 2)

by Robert F Hays

  He reached for a box on the seat next to him and adjusted the controls. Earl jumped from his seat to look over Jim’s left shoulder and Mort sprang to his right.

  “These strips were taken from your portable music recorder player. They’re the volume and frequency level indicator strips. You’re going to have to do a little visual calculation.”

  Jim watched as two dots appeared one on each strip. On the vertical, it was half way between the center and the top. On the horizontal, it was to the left. Levin placed his finger at the dot on the vertical strip. “You trace a horizontal line from this one to a point directly above the other and that’s the point you need. It’ll take a bit of practice.”

  “Just like the gunners sights on a Sherman tank,” Earl said, “windage and elevation.”

  “I do not know what you’re talking about,” Levin said. “But as long as you understand.”

  Out of the corner of one eye, Jim saw Sam grimace. “What’s the problem Sam?”

  “No one mentions that damn Yankee general’s name without me gettin’ madder’n Fred Conkhill’s bull.”

  “Ok Sam,” Earl said with a smile, “how about an M4 medium battle tank then.”

  “That’s better. But ah still don’t see why ya needed so much water in a battle. Didn’t y’all carry canteens?”

  Jim and Earl looked at each other in confusion then burst out laughing.

  As the evening progressed, Levin completed a second cowl. Earl and Mort took turns wearing one while the other used Levin’s makeshift controller to indicate small objects around the cabin. The wearer tried to identify the target object while Levin made adjustments.

  Jim, Chris and Captain Mull inspected the available maps and debated over three possible sites for the proposed observation post. Marie sat at the control panel continually monitoring the shuttles limited detection instruments and Peter serviced the group’s collection of armaments. Six laser pistols were retrieved from a locker next to the pilot’s seat.

  The remainder of the party formed a production line to either assemble or disassemble the equipment under Levin’s direction.

  With the cramped quarters they had to store equipment outside.

  The cave was an ideal place. Due to the direction of the prevailing winds, the interior was not affected. The shuttle’s instruments recorded a maximum of a ten kilometer per hour breeze within the cave, even when the wind speeds on the outside were in the high forties. Equipment in the open needed only minimal securing.

  At around midnight, the lights dimmed and all settled in for the night.

  Chapter 12

  The weather was perfect for the team as it made its way down the gentle slope from the mouth of the cave to the valley floor. A misty rain cut visibility to under a hundred meters. The rocky grade gave the heavily encumbered party adequate footing.

  Jim was in the lead as they walked, single file, in each other’s footsteps. Earl followed, then Carol, Chris, Peter, Marie and Sam.

  “Ten degrees right,” said the voice of Captain Mull in Jim’s receiver. “There’s a small gully ahead.”

  Jim made the slight change in his path and looked up to see a large boulder appear in the distance through misty clouds rapidly moving under the forty kilometer per hour wind. Occasional concentrations in the rain temporarily obscured one end of the regularly spaced party from the other.

  “There’s a rocky outcrop ahead,” Jim said.

  “There’s a gap between the rocks,” the Captain said, “indicating now.”

  Jim watched the small luminous dots appear on his faceplate and changed direction once more until the horizontal indicator centered.

  The further they went down the slope, the more frequent became the clumps of mulch weed and various other fast growing grasses.

  “Oh hell,” Earl exclaimed as Jim heard a clatter of rocks and turned to see him attempting to stand from his current kneeling position. “Slippery rock.”

  Jim took a pace back up the slope then stopped. Earl dismissed his assistance with a wave.

  “All right?” Jim asked. He watched Earl stand and adjust the sonic excavator on his back.

  “Just a knee. It’s fine, I’ve got another one.”

  Jim turned and continued the walk into the moving mist. One thing he was thankful for was the enclosed waterproof suit he wore. Without it, he would by now be soaked. The in built circulation unit also reduced humidity within the suit and, when necessary, adjusted temperature.

  The ground flattened as the voice from the shuttle guided them around further obstacles. Jim was appreciative of the decreased pressure on his knees, walking downhill with a heavy load was painful.

  “You’re almost to the river,” the Captain said.

  Jim stared through the rain. “How far away?”

  “Fifty meters.”

  Jim looked again and saw level ground clear of weed at a distance. “Don’t see it.”

  “It’s there. You’ll be falling in the thing in a minute.”

  Jim walked the fifty meters to where he was told there was a riverbank. As he approached, the level ground ahead appeared to have moving ripples on the surface. “Hey, it isn’t a water type river; it’s a mud type river.”

  As he reached the bank, he picked up a rock and threw it. Instead of a splash, he heard more of a splat as it sank. It slowly flowed from left to right carrying small clumps of weed with it. Jim took the newly assembled long range listening device from his back and placed it carefully on a rock.

  Chris moved up and dropped the converted survival tent on the ground. It unrolled and became rigid in a vaguely boat shape. They hooked the converted heater air conditioner to its stern. After pushing it into the mud, Earl climbed aboard.

  “This thing’ll work in theory,” Chris said as he climbed in and played with the motor. “I just didn’t count on the water being this thick.”

  “Must have been that storm on the high plains last night,” Captain Mull said over the radio.

  The makeshift motor hummed. Earl grabbed one end of a cord handed him by Peter. Peter fed out the line as the boat pulled away from the bank. It rocked, pushed by gusts from the ever present wind. The two passengers ducked low to offer the least resistance to the wind as it slowly disappeared in the mist.

  The feeding line stopped then jerked twice.

  “Well, let us know Chris,” Jim said through his radio. “Did you get there, or did you drown.”

  “We’ve arrived. Just looking for solid ground to drive in the anchor.”

  “In the past, that river has risen to a meter higher than it is now,” the Captain said. “Make sure the anchor is well up the bank.”

  “Doing that and it’s now secure.”

  Within minutes, Chris returned alone. “She’ll take three. Who’s next?”

  “Sam and Carol,” Jim announced.

  They climbed aboard and the boat pulled away again attached to the cord by a loop on one side. The trip was uneventful so Jim and Marie got in next.

  The boat rocked violently as it wallowed away from the bank and Jim grabbed both sides. Halfway across, a particularly violent gust blew up a wave of mud which splattered over the boat.

  “The mud’s covered my faceplate and I can’t see,” Marie said.

  “Stay low!” Chris said just as a second, more violent gust tipped the boat.

  “What’s going on?” Carol asked.

  “Shit!” Jim said, now blinded with a mud covered faceplate. He frantically grabbed for the safety cord with one hand while feeling for Marie with the other. The boat slowly turned over as Jim took hold of the shoulder strap on Marie’s load.

  “Gottcha,” Chris said. Jim felt a tug on his sleeve.

  “Dump your equipment Marie,” Jim said. “I’m losing my grip.”

  “No, we need this stuff,” she replied.

  Jim heard a beeping from the ventilation unit of his suit and felt the material suddenly cling to his body as a vacuum built up inside. He kicked as he floated
in the mud in an attempt to get a better hold on the safety cord.

  “Your suits are coated,” Levin said over the radio. “You have to wash the mud off quickly or you’ll suffocate.”

  “A little difficult right now Levin. Marie, lose the pack.”

  “No, I can hold on.”

  “Switch off the vent on the suit,” Levin said. “You can breathe unfiltered air for a while.”

  “Hold on to the cord,” Peter said. “I’ll undo this end and everyone over there can pull you in.”

  Jim felt the cord go slack as he tried to wipe his faceplate with his sleeve. The air in his suit was becoming stale as his breathing became heavy. Chris’s hand pulled at the right side of his cowl and he heard a pop and smelled the mild aroma of rotten eggs from the unfiltered air.

  “Duck your head a bit Jim,” Chris said. “I have to reach Marie.”

  “We cain’t pull ‘em in,” Sam said. “Pullin’ them through the mud ain’t like water. We jest have ta wait ‘till the current swings them ‘round ta the bank further downstream.”

  Jim tried to peer through the streaks on his faceplate. “How’s everyone here?”

  “I’m just fine,” Chris said. “I’m sitting on the overturned boat and have a hold on both of you.”

  “I’m all right,” Marie said, “just can’t do anything other than hold on.”

  “Keep your grip,” Earl said. “You’re floating toward the bank and we’re on our way to pull you out.”

  The threesome held on and waited. Long minutes later Jim felt his load lift and hands pulling at his arm.

  “We’ve got them,” Carol said.

  “I have spotted a large puddle twenty meters from your location.” Captain Mull said. “Levin said that you have to wash that mud off and the puddle reads like plain water. The suits are water repellant, not mud repellant.”

  The mud caked members were lead to the puddle while Earl righted and emptied the boat. He then returned to reattach the safety line and pick up Peter.

  “From now on it’s two in the boat,” Chris said as they rolled in the puddle.

  Jim washed his faceplate and looked around, able to see for the first time in a while. “I hope our swim didn’t affect the gear.”

  “It will not,” Levin said. “Everything is watertight.”

  Continuing on their way, they trudged through the thick mat of weed. The rain had eased and visibility increased to around a hundred meters. It was early afternoon when the ground sloped up toward the small hill where they had decided to place their observation post. The pain of heavy weight on shoulder straps forced them to stop more frequently.

  “You’re on top of the hill,” the Captain said.

  Earl dropped his load and looked around. “I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  Jim smiled as he looked up in the direction of the settlement. “If this weather clears, we’ll be able to see the tents. The camp’s only about two kilometers away.”

  Earl leaned forward and ripped a clump of weed from the ground. “In that case it’s time to dig in before they can see us too.”

  They cleared a rectangular area of weed and Earl picked up the excavator shoving the pointed end into the bare clay rock earth. It buzzed as the tip sank a short way. Within seconds, lumps of clay flew into the air landing a few meters away. The lumps slowly became a steady stream as Earl moved the excavator around to scatter the clay as it landed amongst the weeds. The hole rapidly enlarged. Jim felt the vibration in the ground through his feet from where he was standing a distance away.

  “Coming around,” Earl said as he swung the device and everyone scattered. “Can’t pile this stuff in one spot or they might see it and know we’re here.”

  The rest of the party wandered to the other side, kicking at visible lumps and spreading them into the weed.

  The hole enlarged to a depth of one and a half meters and Chris broke out the cover, another section of tent. They positioned it over the hole propping up the corners with large rocks and covering it with the weed they had cleared before. Climbing inside, they set up the instruments in the gap between tent and ground on the side facing the colony. Carol settled down to hook up the communications links as the rest relaxed.

  “Got it,” Carol said. “We just connected with the control unit on Pellan. Their battle field controllers and advisers will be online in a second.”

  Sam looked up at the tent section over them and smiled. “Tents that put theirselves up. Like them better than the canvas ones we had ta haul around.”

  “Controller one online,” said a voice from two hundred light years away.

  Jim chuckled. “Yep, putting up those big tents was the job I hated most in the army. How about you Earl?”

  “Peeling potatoes. Buckets of them. Sitting there bored, looking at one after another. When you thought you were done, they brought in another bucket.”

  “Controller two online,” another voice said.

  “I didn’t have to do that,” Jim said. “We had mechanical potato peelers. How about you Chris, what was your most hated job in the military?”

  “Controllers three and four online.”

  “Checking the hull. At regular intervals they’d send a team out to go over the surface of the ship and visually inspect for dents and pits caused by flying space debris. Machines could do the same thing, and better, but they said it was good training to do it ourselves. We’d go from one end to the other checking every square centimeter. Then some idiot Sergeant would say we didn’t do it well enough and we had to do it all over again.”

  They all turned to look at Sam who lifted his head realizing that it was now his turn.

  “Well, what ah hated most was buryin’ dead mules. It took a long time ta dig sech a big hole and by then they was a stinkin’ somthin’ powerful. That was at the beginnin’ of the war. Near the end when one died, we ate ‘em.”

  Jim leaned back against the damp clay wall of the hole and started to laugh. As he did so, he heard one of the controllers on Pellan quietly chuckling.

  “That weren’t funny,” Sam protested. “Them mules was heavy and we had ta drag ‘em with a horse if’n we had one handy.”

  “I’m not laughing about that Sam. It’s the situation. Soldiers always have something to gripe about, even though they soldiered thousands of years apart.”

  Chris was also highly amused. “I dare say that the ancient Assyrians sat around like we are now, complaining about cleaning guts from the chariot wheels.”

  “Sound analyzer online,” came another voice. “Can we check out the listening device? Just swing it around until we pick something up.”

  Jim crawled to the long range detector and grasped the fine adjust directional controls slowly panning it in the vague direction of the camp.

  “Hear anything now?”

  “I’ve put it through the system. You’ll hear it too if anything comes on.”

  “...with the...” came a strange voice as Jim swung it back again to catch the speaker. “...just hold it steady so I can get this on.”

  “Keep it going,” the controller said. “We’re trying to map the perimeter of the camp.”

  Jim turned the controls further catching more conversation.

  “...good coffee. Is it from our own stock or...”

  “...twelve, thirteen, four...”

  “What on earth is that?” Jim asked as he paused on a strange noise.

  “Snoring,” the controller said. “It’s probably the sleeping section. I have a fix on the orientation. Could you switch the transfer and I’ll control it from here.”

  Carol touched a couple of controls on her small console and the sound of sleeping humans disappeared.

  “I can leave it on so you can listen in,” Carol said. “You never know what you might hear.”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Not my style,” Jim said. “I’m not one of them weirdoes that do things like that.”

  “I heard what you
said,” the voice said. “And it’s a living.”

  “What’s your name?” Jim asked.

  “Herb, I’m head coordinator and controller one. I’ll be your personal control when you’re moving.”

  Jim looked through the gap in the tent at the clearing rain. “Herb, how are you and the family.”

  “Just fine, wife’s expecting our fourth any day now. I have a backup in case I have to disappear for an hour or so.”

  Earl smiled. “I’ve paced up and down in a waiting room myself.”

  “Waiting room?” Herb said. “What were you waiting for?”

  Jim reached across and grasped Earl by the shoulder. “He’ll be in the delivery room with her and assist the doctor.”

  Earl’s jaw dropped and he stared in shocked amazement. “What? Watching?”

  “Yes, it was the custom in my time too. I was present at the birth of my boys.”

  “And he’ll be there for his daughter as well,” Carol added.

  “That’s... that’s disgusting. Don’t you agree Sam?”

  Sam shrugged. “Nope, them there city fellahs used ta leave it ta the midwife and women folk. But ah lived in the country. Me and ma sister-in-law delivered both of mine. Ah likes it better that way.”

  Earl slumped back into a corner and continued to look genuinely shocked.

  “Readouts coming through,” Herb said. “The camp has a population of five thousand three hundred and thirty seven. Four hundred and eighty three are still in cryo chambers. We have located eighty seven chemical propellant fire arms, mostly of the rifled type. Voice stress analysis indicates an abnormal amount of tension even when adjusted for the environment. Camp layout should be on your data pad now.”

  Peter picked up their single pad and examined the pattern of squares and circles. “Where are the armed men concentrated?”

  “This tent on the edge of the camp,” Herb said as one of the squares started to blink. “Most of them are there but a few are randomly wandering the camp. One thing we’re concerned about are some unidentifiable objects outside the perimeter of the camp. Electrical wire strung between low poles that lead to the nearest tent and objects connected to the ends of the wires.”