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

by Robert F Hays

  “You three the mechanics ah axed for?” asked a black American man, in what Jim identified as a city accent.

  “Just passing through,” Harry said as they walked by.

  “Well just pass through another tent, eh,” said the Canadian next to him. “We’re working in here.”

  The next was a storage tent and the three slowed their pace.

  “People are getting rather testy due to the cramped quarters,” Harry said. “The slow down of building general residents due to work on the Stutchman palace is rather complicating matters.”

  After a few more tents they entered one where two men looked up from a folding table and eyed the three men entering.

  “What do you rodents want?” the larger of the two asked.

  Harry strode up to the table. “Here’s the tech they wanted for the machine in there.”

  “Didn’t hear nothing about a tech.”

  “Hold it Fred,” the second man said. “That’s that limey soldier. He’s not a rodent. He’s one of us.”

  “A bit of information Jim,” Margaret said. “Rodent is a new derogatory term used by the guards to refer to a colonist.”

  A third man entered the tent and took a seat in a reclined aluminum deck chair in front of a modern flat screen monitor.

  “Well,” the large man said, “you can take the tech in, but that other guy has to stay out here.”

  “Fine,” Harry said as he turned and beckoned for Levin to follow then walked through a door at one end of the tent.

  Jim casually walked over to a stack of crates and took a seat.

  “Play poker rodent?” the large man asked, glancing in Jim’s direction and shuffling a deck of cards.

  “I played a little, many years ago. Mostly with the kids in high school but I haven’t played since.”

  “Got any money?”

  “The Stutchmans have had paper currency printed,” Margaret said. “They call them credits. Your last statement had both our voice and infrared analysts quite amused.”

  Jim shook his head.

  “Have anything of value?”

  Jim raised his left hand and flashed his gold wedding band. “Just this.”

  “Fred, take a look,” said the big man while turning to the third.

  Jim slipped off the ring and handed it to the man who carefully inspected it.

  “One hundred credits,” Fred said. “You can have it back for one hundred and fifty after the game.”

  “How about one twenty?” Jim said.

  The three men laughed as Fred inspected the ring again. “Ok, one twenty. You’ve got a lot of pluck for a rodent.”

  Fred reached into a pocket and retrieved a handful of bills and counted out a number of them before handing them to Jim. Jim looked down and saw the smiling face of Ben Stutchman on the green bill marked with a ten. He then took a vacant seat at the table.

  “What’s the game?”

  “Five card draw, nothing wild,”

  “Ah... Is that the one where you get five cards, one face down and the rest face up?”

  “No, rodent. That’s stud, this is draw. Five cards, you look at them and turn in your discards after a round of betting.”

  “Oh that one. I think I can remember it.”

  “I just asked Colin,” Redmond said. “He said that Jim was a dedicated poker player and had a regular game going back on Earth every Thursday night.”

  “Would you like assistance?” Margaret asked and Jim raised an eyebrow while watching the cards being dealt.

  “As your infra red reaction shows an enthusiasm I’ll put on an expert in the field,” Margaret said. “Before joining the Secret Service, Brett was a security consultant with the casinos in Gato on La Raza. His job was to guard the casinos against what it is we’re about to do.”

  “Jim, this is Brett,” another voice said. “The table shows a pronounced degree of overconfidence. The man to your left shows the typical I.R. pattern of a bluffer. The other seems to be a more straight forward player.”

  “Anny’s one credit,” the large man said.

  “Anny?” Jim said, simulating a confused expression.

  The man reached across and took a one credit note from Jim’s pile and placed it in the middle of the table.

  “Oh yes,” Jim said, picking up his cards. He sorted them, trying to hide his proficiency at card handling and looked down at a pair of queens.

  “We have a record on both of them,” Brett said, “so I can give you quite a good analysis. The one on your right seems to have a passable hand while the one on the left has nothing.”

  “The general consensus is that you shouldn’t beat them too badly,” Margaret said. “It will definitely antagonize them. Ah... I take it by your reaction that you are not going to follow the advice, so just be careful.”

  “Well Andy?” the big man said, looking across the table to the man on Jim’s right.

  “In for a credit,” Andy said throwing a note into the middle.

  Jim hesitated before placing one of his own bills on the growing pile. “The whole thing’s coming back to me now.”

  “How many do you want Andy?”

  “Three,” Andy said.

  “Rodent?”

  “Three,” Jim said as he threw in all but his pair of queens.

  “Dealer takes one,” the big man said.

  “It’s a definite attempt at a bluff,” Brett said. “The other one did have a pair and I believe he picked up a third. The reaction was not intense enough for anything more.”

  Jim looked down at nothing more than his original pair.

  “I see by your reaction that you cannot beat three of a kind, so bluff anyway if you have a pair. If both of you display confidence Andy will fold within two maybe three rounds, then play the dealer slowly for everything he has.”

  As the game progressed Jim rapidly caught on to playing by the advice given. He won the first hand then folded the second to avoid suspicion. There was very little in the pot anyway.

  “One card,” the man to his left said.

  “He’s trying to fill an inside straight,” Brett said as Jim handed him a card. “By your confused reaction I see you are trying to figure out how I know. Well I had better explain then. When a person follows a sequence of numbers their infrared pattern reacts to each with what we call blips. In his case, when he scanned his hand it went blip, blip, blip, pause, blip. This means that he was following, for example, the sequence six, seven, eight, then a pause for the missing nine then on to ten. By his reaction to the card you handed him he didn’t get the missing one. He is not going to bluff this time. I would say that he will fold on the first round.”

  Fifteen minutes and two hands later Jim reached across the table and gathered up another pile of paper and sorted it.

  “Come on, we have work to do,” Harry said as he reentered the room followed by Levin.

  “Hey,” the big man said, “this hustler just took us for a bundle. He stays and continues playing.”

  “I said we have work to do,” Harry said slowly. “You can win your money back later. It’s orders from up there, and you don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”

  Jim stood and counted out one hundred and twenty credits before handing it to Fred. Fred smiled broadly and handed him back his wedding band. The three turned and left the room.

  “Why did you get involved in a poker game with those arse holes?” Harry said.

  Jim shrugged. “One of them waved a deck of cards at me?”

  Harry burst out laughing and nodded.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked a voice from behind them as all three turned to face the speaker.

  “Servicing that machine of yours,” Harry said as he glared into the scowling face of a young man.

  “Who are these two?” the man said as he approached.

  “None of your business and it’ll stay that way.”

  “Listen, you’re not going to screw up my chances for a bit of comfort on this miser
able planet. That thing’s my ticket to get me out of this shit. They promised me a lot if I do my job. They promised you the same...”

  The man was cut short by Harry’s leg swung against the back of his knees. A quick pull on the shoulder and he stood bending backward over Harry’s hip. As if from nowhere, a large curved knife appeared at his throat. Jim recognized it as a kukery, a standard fighting weapon of the hill tribes of northern India.

  “Listen stupid,” Harry said. “Do a little arithmetic. Add up how many they’ve promised a villa with fifty servants then multiply that by fifty and compare that number with the total number of colonists minus the original number. It doesn’t leave many to grow food does it?”

  “Ah... but they promised…”

  “Idiot, you’ll not get a thing out of them. Let me put it this way. One word from you and all you’ll get is a soggy grave underneath that stinking weed out there.”

  Harry released his grip allowing the man to fall to the floor.

  “But when it doesn’t work, I’m dead.”

  “It will work, we only examined it,” Harry said and turned to walk out.

  “For now, he will cooperate,” Margaret said. “We’ll keep him under constant surveillance.”

  “Leave it to me,” Peter said. “I know the kitchen where he eats. I’ll slip him a getter.”

  “What’s that?” Jim asked.

  “What’s what?” Harry said as they walked.

  “I’m talking to Peter on the radio.”

  “Just a second, I’m on a different channel,” Harry said and stuck his finger in his ear.

  “A minute device I can put in his food. It attaches itself to the lining of his stomach and is remotely activated to release a poison. One word out of place and he’ll be dead in seconds.”

  “I’m going to like this time,” Harry said. “They retrained me as an agronomist but I would much prefer that chap Peter’s profession.”

  “I’ll sponsor him,” Peter said.

  “Sponsorship accepted,” Chairwoman Rossetti said. “He can do the entrance exam with the first intake after things there are cleared up.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Jim said.

  “Problems back here,” said Captain Mull from the shuttle. “The colonists want to execute the prisoners.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Tell them that ah am a givin’ them a Presidential order,” Sam said through the radio. “Wait ‘till ah gets back thair.”

  “You had better hurry. We’re holding them off at gunpoint at the moment.”

  Chapter 14

  “Hey, I like this,” Jim said as he looked up at the brown plastic sheet that completely covered the cave entrance.

  Earl opened a flap leading to a makeshift airlock. “Made from a tent that was with the survey team. We used one of the gadgets Levin put together to melt the plastic onto the rock. It has a near perfect seal. It’s a lot more comfortable not having to wear these suits in the cave.”

  Jim heard the soft hum of the air purifying system as the party entered. The shuttle sat just inside with its blunt nose up against the barrier. They made their way between the shuttle and the brown cave wall. Mort sat on the step to the shuttle’s main hatch with an odd looking instrument on his lap.

  “They’re in there,” Mort said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

  “What’s that thing on you’re lap?”

  “It’s a stunner. Levin made it.”

  Levin stepped forward and meekly caught Jim’s attention. “It’ll render a person unconscious for about half an hour, but I could not get the range more than about five meters.”

  “It’ll do quite nicely.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Levin added. “I want to check out the contents of those vehicles. If one of them has what I think it does then there are a few things I can make that will be more helpful. “

  “Go to it Levin,” Jim said looking up to see Captain Mull approaching from further inside the cave. “What’s the situation Captain?”

  “We have them sort of calmed down. They’re waiting for President Sam to render a decision, but I doubt if some of them will accept it if it does not involve the guard’s immediate and quite painful death.”

  “Ah guess ah has ta do some fancy talkin’,” Sam said as he walked toward the back of the shuttle.

  “Don’t see why we can’t just string em up,” Earl said, slapping his sidearm. “But whatever your decision is, we’ll back you.”

  “Sam glanced over his shoulder at the armed escort following. “Ah was a talkin’ to them there legal fellahs bafore we left the ship. They said we had ta be careful ‘bout ‘stablishing the law. They said we had laws writ down, but none of them collection of what happened bafore ta look back on.”

  “Precedents,” Chris said.

  “Yep, that was the word they used, them precedents thaings. They said if’n we do one thaing now, fellahs in the future will say it’s all right ta do it agin ‘cause it was already done.”

  They passed stacks of crates and disassembled equipment lining the walls of the cave as they walked toward the back. The floor was firm and dry with scattered rock fragments embedded in the clay. A hundred meters further down it expanded into a large cavern. More than thirty colonists sat around a fire made from dehydrated mulch weed, the only organic material available.

  Jim smiled to himself when he remembered a simple fact about human habit. No matter how technologically advanced they were, man still felt compelled to congregate around the flame of a real burning fire. He noticed it of current culture as well.

  “Oh thank heavens,” a female colonist exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “It’s President Sam. Please tell these idiots that we have to have a trial and do things properly. Just killing them would be murder.”

  “Yep,” the President said, “we gotta do thaings proper like.”

  “Screw a trial!” said a male colonist, jumping to his feet. “They didn’t give my brother a trial when they threw him out an airlock. They deserve only what they did to others. No consideration what so ever, just kill ‘em.”

  “Kill ‘em?” echoed another female colonist. “Let me take care of it. I’ll start with cutting their balls off, then their toes and fingers. Any one with a weak stomach can go somewhere else for the two hours it’ll take.”

  “Oh ick,” Carol whispered.

  “Now, we cain’t go a doin’ thaings like that. Them thair people on other planets’ll thaink we’s like that there Hitler fellah ah was told ‘bout. If in years ta come, ya goes a callin’ on one of them other places, and ah am sure ya will want ta, them there people will say ta each other ‘Don’t go a talkin’ ta them fellahs, they’s downright uncivilized’. The only way is ta do it proper like.”

  “What do you know?” another female said. “You didn’t go through what we’ve been through. Years of nothing but dehydrated plankton crap to eat. People killing each other over the colony priority roster. We haven’t had any law to speak of for a long time.”

  “Now, now, ah seen a friend of mine eat his favorite dawg ‘cause there weren’t no food, and them men a screamin’ in the hospital tent ‘cause there weren’t no more heroine ta kill the pain when they cut their laig off. Georgia after the war weren’t no Garden of Eden.”

  “Ay mate,” said an Australian man sitting next to the fire, “The President ‘ere ‘as been through a whole mess of different shit than we have, but it’s still shit. I’ll go along with what he decides.”

  “Ah cain’t decide nothin’ ‘bout them men. Ah am jest the President. Y’all are the people. Ah jest do whats y’all wants me too.”

  “Then say they’re guilty and we’ll kill the bastards,” another said.

  “Ah cain’t do that ‘cause ya ain’t thainkin’ right. Y’all are sittin’ here crazy as a mad dawg ‘cause of what’s happened ta y’all. So ah has ta do what’s best. Make y’all wait ‘till this here trouble is over. It has ta be a fair trial and ah cain’t see no impart
ial jury out of the people a sittin’ here.”

  “Get them to talk out their problems,” Margaret said in Jim’s ear.

  Sam turned with a confused expression. He had obviously heard the same comment but didn’t understand. Chris stepped forward and whispered an explanation.

  “Ah,” Sam said turning back to the colonists. “What was this here roster y’all keep a talkin’ ‘bout.”

  “It was an international list divided up according to profession,” explained a man. “I was a 121 F. That’s an electronics repair tech. You also had sub codes based on age, health, secondary skills and psychological profile. A second cross reference sub code was based on immediate family’s skills, spouse’s status, and children.”

  “I’m a little confused here,” Jim said. “The first ships to leave got the most qualified passengers and the last ones got what was left?”

  “No, the computer took that into account and selected randomly from the upper end of the list for each ship. That’s where you could do side deals.”

  “Side deals?” Chris said, turning and looking for a pad.

  “Yep, slip a terminal operator a few bucks or some hard to get food product and they would give you a list of people ahead of you. Then you could practice what they called ‘whacking the competition’. If you were way down on the list, you could increase your chances by killing off those ahead of you.”

  “Couldn’t y’all get a better position if’n ya learned more?”

  “Sure could. When the Exodus was announced they gave out a list of shortage skills.”

  Jim again appeared confused. “But in any profession there must have been hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people. To noticeably elevate yourself by ‘whacking the competition’ would take the death of thousands. Did the killers think they could kill that many?”

  “No, they counted on hundreds of people in similar positions doing the same.”

  “Tell them about the Universities getting bombed,” a young woman said.

  “I was getting to that. Another thing complicating ones status was the continual production of qualified people through the education system. So there was a whole lot of attacks on colleges and the assassination of professors. As time went on, things got crazier and crazier.”