“What’s up?” Chris asked.
“Oh it will be nice,” Ben said.
“Two guards just inside the door. I got ‘em with a stunner.”
Ben turned to his guard. “Alan, would you go tell those idiots down there to shut up and stop making so much noise. They’re disturbing me and you all know I hate to be disturbed while I’m dealing with matters.”
“Sure Alan,” Jim said as he watched the guard walk rapidly toward the corridor leading down to the bridge. “Just don’t fall down corridor four stairwell and break your neck.”
“What the hell are you raving about!” Ben snapped as he returned his attention to Jim.
“Thanks Jim,” Earl said. “Waiting for Alan at the bottom of corridor four stairwell.”
“I am crazy, you already know that, and you know crazy people have a tendency to rave.”
“Just found number twelve,” Dan said with a marked tone of relief.
“Jest got Alan,” Sam said.
Ben straightened and took a sip from the glass in his hand. “I am through with fooling around. You are not amusing any more...”
“Fuck you,” Jim announced casually.
“What?”
“You heard me, fuck you!”
Ben reached into his jacket and retrieved a small black box with a red button in the middle. “You forget I have this.” Ben’s eyes bulged as his muscles visibly tensed. The smile was gone and his left thumb rested lightly on the button.
“So, go ahead, push it you wacko...”
“Hold it Jim!” Dan yelled. “We’re having trouble disarming this one!”
“Ah... Mr. Stutchman,” Jim said in a pathetic voice. “I do think I really need that medical help bad. I can’t control the irrational things I’m saying.”
“Young, you are becoming intolerable!” Ben yelled.
“Got it,” Dan announced. “Jim, you can tell the poofter to go ahead and push it.”
“Then push it you poofter!” Jim yelled.
“I will, I will!”
“We’ll let you keep that thing so you can push it whenever you want in the mental home we’re going to put you in.”
“This’ll be your fault, murderer!” Ben said as he pushed the button in an exaggerated motion. “You made me do it by insulting a superior being! That is immoral! That is profane!”
“Tell that to the men behind you Stutchman.”
Ben slowly turned to see Peter and Sam’s smiling faces.
“In the name of the government and people of the Confederate States of America ah hereby places you under arrest.”
Jim watched as the two jumped forward and wrestled Ben to the deck.
“Just picked up something on distant sensors,” Captain Mull said. “It is a large ship headed this way.”
“A fighting ship?” Jim said, taking a deep breath and bracing for the worst.
“If it is, it’s not one of ours,” Rossetti said.
“Negative, too large and ungainly,” Mull answered. “It looks like another colony ship. By its speed, I calculate that it will arrive in about six weeks.”
“Our automated beacon,” Matt said. “It must have picked up the announcement it made when we first arrived and changed course in this direction.”
“Good heavens,” Redmond said. “More colonists?”
Chapter 16
The planet’s sun shone through the light cloud cover as Jim stepped from the Lydia’s shuttle. A light and pleasant breeze barely lifted the flag on the bluestone main building of the spaceport’s private lander section. Across the dull gray tarmac Matt waved as he walked toward Jim from the direction of the public enclosure.
Matt’s entire appearance had improved since the last time Jim had seen him in person. The dull pallor, a side affect of the cryogenics, had gone. Instead he wore a healthy suntan. Instead of trudging like a man walking into the wind he had a cheerful gait.
“Dad, when do we get to see Freedom Cave?” Michael asked as he stood watching the empty luggage carrier as it raced in their direction.
“The Remington kids could take you there this afternoon,” Carol said while she assisted a toddler down the shuttle’s two fold out steps. “Only if they have nothing else planned.”
Michael frowned. “But doesn’t it take a day to get there?”
“No dork,” Colin said, using the term in its Old Earth meaning. “Dad and Mom used to walk the distance. A grid navigator can take us there in half an hour now.”
“But the mud river. What about crossing it?”
Jim smiled. “I doubt if it’s still a river of mud, and I believe there are now bridges across it at several points.”
Colin grabbed Michael by the shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. “Yeah, they’re not about to leave things the way they were a year and a half ago just so you could see it.”
“Oh,” Michael said with a look of disappointment as his image of battling the elements to see the place was destroyed. “Might as well be back on Batalavia. This place isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.”
“Hey Jim,” Matt said as he walked the last couple of meters toward Jim with his hand extended. “How do you like this place now?”
“Just fine Matt, but I think Michael’s a little disappointed that he doesn’t have to battle one of those killer fogs on the way to the hotel.”
“Well, we could always put him on a strato going north to the new settlement at Bennett. They still have the occasional wandering hurricane up there. One other thing, you’re not staying at a hotel, you’re staying at my new house. It has six bedrooms.”
Jim laughed. “I take it you’re doing quite well as my competition.”
“Yep,” Matt said, swelling slightly with pride. “Replicas of Old Earth curiosities are selling well around the galaxy. The distributors are bugging me to step up production, but I can’t due to the industrial worker shortage. Come on, we’ll discuss the state of things on the way home. Laura’s waiting for us in the navigator. It’s parked in a loading zone so we’d better hurry.”
They turned and walked toward the public enclosure and Jim glanced over his shoulder to see the luggage carrier as it automatically loaded from the shuttle’s cargo pod.
The spaceport was still primitive by modern standards. They walked in the open toward the main buildings. It reminded Jim of the first airline flight he had taken on Earth before boarding tunnels became the norm. It was obvious that the situation was soon to be rectified due to the massive construction work in progress.
“I have arranged for your things to be delivered,” Matt said as he led the way.
“There’re six of us. How’re we all going to fit in your navigator?”
“Easy, I have a six seater now. Turned in that puny little Commonwealth lend lease to the colonial rep and bought a decent one from Honest Earl.”
Jim chuckled as he wiped the appearing sweat from his forehead. The region of the planet still had a moderately humid atmosphere. “Honest Earl?”
“Yep, it’s been his nick name since he got that Fargo dealership a year ago. He has enough of a fortune that he doesn’t need to work, but he figured he had to do something to stay sane.”
“Know how he feels. How’s Sam doing?”
“The honorary President for life is still involved in a little politicin’, as he would say. He seems to be about the only thing holding the factions from each other’s throats. At the planetary council meetings, when he gets up to speak, everyone else shuts up out of respect. It sort of calms down all the infighting we’ve been having lately.”
“I love the new name of the planet,” Carol said. “It has a beautiful ring to it.”
“That was completely Sam’s idea. Confederate States of America was a little odd as there are no states to confederate. He just added two vowels to C.S.A. and came up with Casia. We kept the flag as there was a public outcry when someone suggested another one.”
They left the tarmac and walked down a smooth basalt sidewalk in
the direction of a road to the rear of the main terminal. A royal blue navigator sat waiting with a young woman standing next to it. She smiled as they appeared around the corner.
“Laura, at long last I’d like you to meet Jim, Carol, Colin, Michael and the little one’s Suzanne. Jim this is my younger wife Laura.”
“Younger wife,” Laura said in simulated annoyance. “I’m just eighteen months younger. When we were married I was a standard year younger but the six months difference in our wake ups widened the gap.”
“That age thing must be confusing, especially with birthdays,” Carol said as she picked up her one year old daughter.
“Yes it is,” Matt said. “We decided to keep the birth dates the same and adjust the official age up or down by up to six months. Tony, my oldest, had two ninth birthdays four months apart. One just before leaving Earth and the next after he woke up here.”
Laura commanded the navigator’s door to open and then looked back at Carol. “It’s a great source of amusement. With friends of ours, Rick and Wanda, Rick used to be a few weeks older than Wanda, now she’s older than he is.”
They climbed into the navigator with Suzanne sitting on Carol’s lap. Matt glanced back from his position in the front left seat of the computer guided vehicle. “There’s something I have to get used too. No baby seat. They told me these things never crash, but I still get nervous when I see a baby on a knee.”
The navigator rose slightly and slowly accelerated down the wide, newly paved road. Jim settled back and watched the glistening new buildings and hundreds of imported saplings lining the road. A large decorative sign to the right announced. ‘Adams Department Store.’ and one on the left informed him that the shop contained the largest selection of 3Vs and Corporeality rooms on the planet. “Where are the Stutchmans these days?”
“Charles is still under house arrest, but there’s talk of releasing him due to his contributions for the public good. He wheels and deals around the galaxy on our behalf and has been a big factor in our present financial standing.
“And Ben?”
“Ben, on the other hand, lives in a cave somewhere out there. He’s as mad as a hatter and the doctors say it’s permanent brain damage. It appears that he had an untreated case of a sexually transmitted virus back on Earth for some years. The damage to his brain is irreversible even by modern doctors. You heard of his so called escape didn’t you?”
“Vaguely, how did it happen?”
“Just after you left, he was transported to the surface, and while they were moving him from the shuttle to a makeshift jail he broke free and disappeared into the fog.
“They didn’t chase him?”
“No one really bothers about him any more. The police leave food where he can find it. He does occasionally wander into town and loudly tell people of his divine origins and scream for support of his holy order that will sweep the galaxy. He refers to himself as the Emperor. People just find him amusing and leave him alone.”
“Is that Central Park?” Jim asked as he pointed at a large expanse of open land with newly planted trees everywhere.
“Yep, that’s it. They moved the last of the old storm tents out four local months ago. Over there to the left is the new recreation center and live theater.”
Colin craned his neck to see as much of the area as possible. “Is that where the first settlement was?”
“Yes,” Matt replied.
“Is that where all of you crept in and shot it out with the guards?” Colin said.
“Well,” Jim said. “Sam and the others did most of the creeping and fighting. I was at the spaceport at the time and was no help at all.”
Matt’s head jerked around and he frowned. “You organized everything. At that time, you were the most valuable person in the whole operation. Without you, we’d still have a dictator. On top of everything else, it wasn’t your fight, it was ours. The people fully appreciate what you did.”
“Well, after the way that asshole talked to me, I made it my fight. Plus the fact that as one of my favorite philosophers, Tarzan of the apes put it: ‘When there’s trouble in the jungle, sooner or later it’s everyone’s trouble.’”
“I didn’t know Tarzan was that deep,” Carol said. “On those old black and white video tapes of yours, all I saw him do was wrestle rubber crocodiles.”
“Yep,” Jim said trying to keep a straight face. “Him, Nietzsche and Curly of the three stooges were by favorite philosophers.”
Matt turned and frowned at Jim again. “What did Curly say that was so profound?”
“On a number of occasions he made the statement that sums up my life in the past couple of years perfectly.”
“Ok,” Carol said. “I know you’re going to tell us no matter what we say so I’ll ask. What was it?”
“‘I’m a victim of circumstance.’ what else?”
The navigator left the small city and entered the spread of suburbia. The widely spaced houses were copies of many styles from other planets in the galaxy. The only way Jim could distinguish it from a similar district on Batalavia was the newness of the vegetation. No tree as yet had grown to more than two meters in height.
“You mentioned infighting in the council,” Jim said as they entered the driveway of a particularly elegant residence.
“Yep, mostly over immigration and nationalism. Some want an open door policy to raise the numbers of the lower level work force. Some want a selective policy to attract the expertise we don’t have and others are afraid that we’ll lose our Old Earth identity if we allow anyone in at all. At the moment, it’s a selective policy.”
“How about you?”
“Well, I do need the workers, mostly factory technicians, but on the other hand I wouldn’t want to see our culture swamped by the rest of the galaxy.”
“So you’re definitely undecided.”
“Something like that, but I’m sure we’ll find a compromise. A whole planet with under six hundred thousand population is extremely vulnerable to foreign exploitation.” Matt cocked his head and looked at Jim with a subdued smile. “There is one solution.”
“Ok, I’ll bite, what’s that?”
“There’s a new slogan going around. ‘Populate or perish’. We’re doing our part, Laura’s pregnant.”
“Congratulations,” Carol said.
Jim laughed at the irony. “With a number of the planets in the galaxy becoming overcrowded, that’s amusing. It’s one of the main causes for the conflict over the planet Rennes.”
“Overcrowded?” Matt commented. “I hardly call half a billion people on Regis overcrowding. Before the desperate attempt at population reduction on Earth we had over nine billion.”
“Remember, the people out there now have a different concept as to what constitutes a crowd. When I left Earth, the regular working man had an apartment. On Batalavia, one would have a four bedroom house on five acres.”
“Well it’s their fault for not converting more planets earlier. We can’t be expected to take the surplus.”
“They have eight in the process now, but the one nearest to completion is thirty standard years away.”
“They’ll have to wait. We can take a few but I dread having a flood, and there’s an extremist faction that wants complete isolation. By the way, there’s a council meeting tomorrow and I’ve been asked to bring you along so you can be officially welcomed and honored. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
“Carol and I would love to go.”
“Ah... I don’t know how to put this, but Carol is Batalavian.”
“So?”
“There are two council members that will walk out if a Batalavian is presented in council hall.”
“What? She was out there crawling around in the mud and fog while most of the people here were sound asleep.”
“Well... Ah... Some of them get quite mean.”
“I refuse to go in that case,” Jim announced slapping his knee.
Carol slapped Jim on the upper arm
. “Go. I’ll show the boys Observation Post Hill.”
Matt smiled. “You’re going to get a surprise when you do. It’s surrounded by housing.”
The navigator’s door opened as a boy and a girl ran from the house to meet them.
“Is this Colin?” the boy asked.
“Yep,” Matt answered, “that’s him in the flesh.”
The boy’s eyes widened as he ran to Colin. “Did you really shoot that guy in the nuts?”
“Tony!” Matt snapped before turning to Jim. “The other night we saw the 3V movie about your fight with that religious group just after you arrived.”
Colin lowered his head and looked sheepish. “Well, I didn’t know he was a friend of dad’s. I thought he was one of the bad guys.”
Laura broke into a broad smile. “Throughout the whole show Matt kept complaining that the actor that played you looked and acted nothing like you.”
Jim shrugged. “Preston Nash is a popular actor but I really don’t know how I act. I’ve never been able to watch me so I don’t have any opinion.”
“Come on you two,” Tony said. “Come to my room and we’ll tell you about the two bandits dad shot on the way to Kansas.”
“Lunch in fifteen minutes,” Laura said. “Then you said you’d take the boys to see Freedom cave.”
Jim watched the four children as they dashed into the house. “I heard that your new local 3V station’s going to make a film about us and the rebellion. Who do you want to play you?”
“I wish Robert Redford or Clark Gable were still around.”
“More like Rodney Dangerfield,” Laura said sarcastically as they walked toward the door.
Jim was amused as he realized that the two were intentionally using examples that he would recognize. He thought it similar to himself talking to a person from the nineteen twenties and using the names Rudolph Valentino and Charlie Chaplin.
“I take it that you’re fully hooked up to all the V systems now,” Jim said, looking around the spacious grounds with new growth evident in all directions.
“Unfortunately yes,” Matt replied. “Connected a week ago.”
To Wake the Living (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 2) Page 31
