“See,” the woman said, “his jaw tightened. He’s real mad at the way the prosecuting attorney’s treating the witness. About six of them are the same way. Two are the opposite and show hostility toward the immigrants and the other four are scared. Our instructors on Pellan believe that they’re under some sort of threat.”
“So, they already know which way they’re going to vote.”
“Not really,” said a familiar voice from one of the console speakers. “We usually know long before they do. Most of them think they have not made up their minds yet, but in fact they have.”
“Hi there Herb,” Jim said. “They got you in on this?”
“Sure have, in fact most of us were with you during the rebellion. We’re the designated experts on motivation and reactions specific to Earth cultural differences.”
Jim frowned. “Hey, what you’re saying is giving ammunition to our opposition down here.”
“No, there’re vast differences within the cultures of the galaxy. It’s due to the differing emphasis on specific values in one’s upbringing. If two groups are taught that two specific virtues are important but differ as to which is slightly more important, then their reactions differ slightly. Our methods seem to be accurate enough to pick up on that. It is not genetic, it’s cultural.”
“But all these people are from different cultures back on Earth.”
“Yes, but there are also many commonalties. They have all been through the trying times that occurred just before leaving Earth. Trauma like that alters a person’s perspective. They have a slightly different outlook on what matters and what does not.”
“Ok, so it’s going to be a mistrial. What then?”
“We all agree that the least hostile reaction would result if Sam exiled the young man before a retrial took place. We calculated that the continuation of the public condemnation of foreigners in another trial would eventually push the fanatic minority to action if they think he may go free. Doing it without warning lessens their chance of organizing.”
“Sam,” Jim said. “The moment this trial’s over I suggest you get him out of here on the next available space liner. He and his family can stay on the Lydia until one comes along.”
“When this here fracas is over, he can come back,” Sam said. “That’s if’n he wants ta.”
“Doubt if anyone would want to come back after what he’s been through,” Jim commented.
* * *
Jim glanced through a second floor window of the Supreme Court building adjacent to the government main chambers. The sounds of singing from a moderately sized crowd outside drift into the room. Harry, the British SAS man stood next to him.
Two troopers from the Home Guard fiddled with their stunners. They were instructed in the use of the weapon while in transit from the training camp to the courthouse.
“How the hell did they find out?” Sam said.
Harry turned his head away from the window. “Your supporters aren’t used to modern security precautions Sam. They don’t know how much can be detected with the gadgetry the police have now. One casual comment by anyone could have tipped them off.”
“...we march and fight, to death or on to victory...” the singing continued.
“What’s that song?” Jim asked as he again peeked through the window.
“The tune is an old Nazi marching song,” Harry replied. “I remember it from training films back on Earth. The words are an English translation that’ve been altered somewhat.”
“Looks like we gotta call fer a strato,” Sam said. “It can pick us up from the roof.”
“Negative on that,” Harry said. “They’ll just storm the spaceport when we get there. It’s a great deal less defensible than this building.”
“So we’re stuck here,” Jim said.
“Yes,” Harry replied. “Wait them out is what I recommend.”
“How long...” Jim was interrupted by the sounds of activity downstairs in the main lobby.
“I’ll check,” Harry said and exited through the office door.
Jim resumed his watch through the window. The small crowd had finished their singing and were quietly chatting and waiting. Jim then glanced back at the young man sitting in the corner of the room. He sat with his face in his hands in a pose of abject misery.
“We’ll get you out,” Jim said in the young man’s direction.
“I did not do it,” he replied as he looked up.
“We know that...” Jim was interrupted by the sound of shouting from downstairs.
“You idiot,” came the sound of Harry’s voice. “If that had been a laser pistol, you’d have burned her face off.”
Jim sprang to the open door just as a Home Guardsman stuttered an apology. “She... she... came up behind me. I didn’t recognize her so I fired. The stunner setting was on the lowest level. She should be all right, I think.”
Jim bounded down the stairs. The body of a female figure came into view. She lay limp on her back with her head turned away from him. A second Guardsman knelt next to her holding a small gadget to her temple. Jim recognized it as a brainwave monitor from their military first aid kit.
“Did she do anything threatening?” Harry demanded.
“No, she just tapped me on the shoulder. I didn’t expect anyone coming from that direction. The hallway she must have come out of is sealed off at the other end.”
Harry turned and looked down at the unconscious woman. “Anyone recognize her?”
“Yep,” said the Guardsman by her side. “She lives down the block from my parents place.”
“Is she a know nothing?” Harry said as he leaned forward to examine the small readout on the brainwave monitor.
“No, I doubt it. She’s a civil engineer and works for a foreign construction company.”
“Shit!” the woman said as her eyes sprang open and she raised her head. “What the yack was that?”
“Madam,” Harry said. “It was a stunner. You’ll be just fine in a few minutes. How did you get in here?”
“Shit,” the woman said and raised herself to one elbow. “If you’re going to treat me like that then I won’t show you the secret way out of here.”
“Secret what?” Jim said.
A guardsman assisted her to a sitting position. “The tunnel,” she said. “I supervised the building of the foundations of this place and the Stutchmans insisted on an escape tunnel. It was the first time we used that tunneler so it isn’t exactly text book straight, but it does go almost to the spaceport.”
Jim turned to see Sam with the young man behind him. “Sam, we have a way out.”
“There’s another branch,” the woman continued. “It leads to the hills just outside of town. That fusion tunneler fascinated us in the speed it melted holes through solid rock so we got a little over enthusiastic. There’s side tunnels and chambers all over.”
“Lead the way,” Jim said. “We have to get our friend here to the shuttle in a hurry. The space liner will pass here tomorrow and if we don’t make it, we’ll have to wait another week.”
“There’s just one thing,” the woman said while being assisted to her feet. “One of the side chambers is occupied. I saw Ben Stutchman on the way here.”
Harry ordered three guardsmen to remain behind making themselves conspicuous at second floor windows. The remaining four guardsmen accompanied Sam, Jim, Harry and the young immigrant down a wide hallway toward the rear of the building.
The party made their way to the office of the chief prosecutor. Behind a mahogany wall panel, a two meter tall opening led down a flight of stairs then leveled out into a long tunnel.
Lights built into the troops’ Ranger suits illuminated the way. They couldn’t see far into the distance as the tunnel curved slightly up ahead.
“We’re a lot more proficient at cutting these tunnels now,” the engineer said. “The city sewers are perfectly straight; it just took a little practice.”
“How far to the spaceport?” Jim said over his sh
oulder.
“About seven kilometers. It took me about an hour to get here at a fast walk.”
“Let’s hope our bluff holds,” Harry said, his voice echoing slightly as he spoke. “The Sergeant I left behind can make an announcement out the window once we’re in the shuttle.”
Jim glanced back at the engineer a second time. “So what did Ben have to say for himself?”
“Not very much in the intelligible field. He had some old furniture set up in a side storage chamber. All he did was sit in an armchair and mutter to himself.
“He was alone?”
“No, there was a young lady there taking care of him.”
“Young lady?” Jim said.
“Yes, she was a medium height, thin girl with long black hair.”
“Did you notice anything else about her?”
“No, just the old style beads around her neck with that piece thing, you know, a circle with four lines inside that connect the center to the circle.”
“That there sounds like Karla,” Sam said from the rear of the party.
“Holy hell,” Jim said with a slight smile. “Somehow I knew she was still alive.”
After forty five minutes of hard walking, side tunnels appeared at a distance to the left and right.
“The left one goes toward the hills,” the engineer announced. “To the right is that chamber I told you about.”
As they approached to within a few meters, the sound of a voice in exuberant conversation drifted from the entrance to the right.
Jim stopped as he passed and peered into the brightly lit chamber at the end of a short tunnel. Ben Stutchman sat in an armchair waving an arm in an exaggerated gesture.
“Hold up,” Jim called. “I have to find out about Karla.”
“No time,” Harry said. “Do that later.”
“Keep going, I’ll catch up.”
Jim cautiously entered the chamber and looked around for the other half of the animated prattle now in progress. Ben was alone, talking to a wall three meters away.
The chamber seemed well equipped with a bed, couch and small kitchen area. A two dimensional screen flickered with a fuzzy image of a man too indistinct to see what he was doing. No sound came from the inbuilt speakers.
“And that’s how we took care of it,” Ben said, still talking to the wall.
“Took care of what, Ben?” Jim said.
“It wasn’t easy,” Ben said, ignoring Jim’s presence. “But that sort of thing never is.”
“Oh shit,” Jim said. “Dementia.”
“Dim what?” Sam asked as he entered.
“Dementia, his brain is slowly dying. He’s hallucinating.”
“Halluca what?” Sam said.
“He’s seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Oh,” Sam said as he approached to within a meter of the armchair. “Ma grandpa did that jest bafor he died. Talked up a storm with old friends he knowed during the revolution, and they was all dead fer years.”
“Ben,” Jim said, leaning forward.
“Huh?” Ben said, looking up. “Who are you, and where has Phil gone?”
“I’m Jim Young, there’s no Phil here Ben. Where’s Karla?”
“I don’t know any Karla,” Ben said, shaking his head. “How did you get into my hotel room?”
“Hotel room? Where are you Ben? What city?”
“Paris, you idiot,” Ben snapped, “and get out before I call the Surratee.”
Jim turned toward the entrance. “He’s out of it. We won’t get any information here.”
“Who are you?” Ben demanded.
“I told you, Jim Young.”
“Oh yes,” Ben said. “I have a message for you from Karla. She said that she’s sorry for screwing things up the way she did. She also said she’d be helping you fulfill your destiny.”
“My what?” Jim said, turning back again.
“What?” Ben said.
“What destiny?”
“Where did Phil go?” Ben said, looking around. “We were having such a great discussion.”
“Come on,” Sam said. “He’s jest like ma grandpa. Says thaings that made sense one minute, then pure crazy the next.”
“Shit,” Jim said as he again continued toward the exit.
Chapter 19
Jim sat back watching the nearest of Sam’s wheat fields as the stalks swayed slightly in the night breeze. He was now used to the seemingly erratic design that governed the layout of modern farms. The way in which the field was plowed was clearly evident in the wandering patterns he saw in the ripening wheat.
The regular square designs of Old Earth were highly inefficient and extremely destructive. The current computer controlled methods took into account many factors including slope, soil depth and proximity, location, and direction of aquifers. It was no longer rule of thumb farming as Jim knew it, it was now a science.
After his initial apprehension, Sam had taken to the techno farm life with ease. He daily consulted the monitors to inform him of the rabbits in the grassland section of his property. They were introduced to hold a niche in the ecosystem, but on overpopulation served to satiate Sam’s hunting instincts. He loved to shoulder his replica Zouave rifle and walk the two kilometers to the grassland. The weapon was from the Young Vintage Firearms Company. It was computer designed from photographs in a history book and very popular among sportsmen. It seemed incongruous to Jim that Sam would locate game with such a high level of technology, then go hunting with a muzzle loading rifle. To Sam it seemed perfectly natural.
One thing that did seem natural to Jim, no matter what the level of technology, was sitting on a farm house porch on a summer night and waiting for a glass of lemonade. The star patterns were slightly different, but the ambience of the scene was quite familiar.
“Marie, bet you feel more comfortable out here than downtown at that hotel.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” Marie replied as she settled back in one of four garden armchairs. “There were only two occasions where someone got mean and told me to go home. Most people were so friendly. I must have turned down a dozen invitations to dinner.”
“Sorry to get you three into this. You hired on to crew my yacht, not get involved in my personal matters. I’m sure you have better things to do than...”
“Jim,” Marie said, “you’re paying us enough to compensate for that. All of us know the importance of what you’re doing. Not just for this planet, but for our own home planets as well. What we’d like to know is what you’re doing. All we see is you on the local 3V, smiling and shaking hands with people.”
“Every day I’m here drives the know nothings crazy. I’m living proof that they’re full of crap.”
“Yep,” Sam said as he walked out the front door carrying a tray of glasses, “their popularity seems to be dropping day by day.”
“I’ll give it another couple of weeks,” Jim said, leaning back and taking another sip from his lemonade. “I understand that no confidence petition on Darlison has almost the required number of signatures. His screaming and yelling on the 3V over us getting that kid off planet didn’t do him any good. People now realize...”
Jim stopped speaking as, out of the corner of one eye, he spotted a bright orange flash in the night sky. The flash was followed by a second, then a third. He blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing the proverbial spots before the eyes. Within seconds, the entire sky lit up from horizon to horizon with twinkling clouds of bright flashing lights so intense it was difficult to observe directly with the naked eye.
Jim blinked again and sat with his mouth open trying to make sense of the spectacle he was observing. “What the....?”
“Shit,” Marie said. “It’s a space battle.”
Joan walked out of the house to join the three now standing spellbound by the spectacle. “The radio just turned to static,” she said.
“Look,” Marie said, pointing at one flash that wasn’t going out. It stayed lit, slowly increasing and dec
reasing in brightness. Smaller secondary sparks slowly streaked from the brighter one. “It has to be a battle cruiser. Caught a good one right in the guts.”
“How do you know?”
“I can see you don’t watch much 3V Jim,” Marie said as she turned to run for the shuttle sitting a hundred meters away in a grassy field. “Can’t contact the Lydia. Communications would be jammed the moment this thing started, but we can pick up some things on the instruments.”
“Are captain Mull and Jack in danger,” Jim asked as they all broke into a sprint.
“No, the Lydia’s in low orbit. The nearest edge of the battle would be at least a thousand kilometers further out.”
Jim started to stagger as he ran. Looking up, he tried to perceive the sheer size of the immense area involved. He slowed to a walk as vertigo affected his coordination. “Shiiit!”
Marie dove through the shuttle hatch touching controls even before she had taken a seat. The others stopped outside, all eyes still scanning the skies. Seconds later, the shuttle’s voice receiver came to life and they heard the sound of a hundred voices all speaking at once in varying degrees of excitement and panic.
Suddenly, all eyes were fixed on what looked like a slow moving falling star as it streaked across the sky.
Jim followed it with an outstretched finger. “That looks like it’s in the planets atmosphere.”
“It is,” Marie said from inside the shuttle. “It’s the size of a corvette. Probably badly damaged and the captain decided to make a run for an atmosphere before the life support gave out. It’s definitely under full control and going for an emergency landing.”
“Can you tell what side it’s on?”
“Negative, the signature is on battle scramble.”
They watched as the glowing object disappeared beyond the horizon.
“Well if’n they’re a landin’ on a planet where ah’m President ah had better find out who they are.”
The underside of the shuttle hummed as Marie prepared for a take off. “They landed three hundred kilometers away. It’ll take fifteen minutes to get there.”
To Wake the Living (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 2) Page 36
