by Jim Laughter
Without another word, he sped out of the rutted drive in a shower of dirt and gravel. Delmar watched in silence while the truck sped away in the direction of town. He was pretty sure where Dorn would soon be and what would happen to the money he’d received from the Hassels. Sure isn’t going for supplies around here! Delmar thought angrily as he went back to the hoeing.
After dark had finally fallen, Delmar herded the last of the livestock back into the barn and dragged his weary body into the house. Although it was pleasant not having Dorn around, he felt the emptiness more than usual. He retrieved one of the study books from the pile in his room and tried to force his mind to understand the mathematical equations in the text. But without a teacher to explain the variance and subtleties of the problems, study was useless.
The resentment that had been building in the back of Delmar’s mind for a long time demanded attention as well. His job at the Hassel farm had forced Delmar to remember better times when he was a child, and a time when this kitchen had been lit by the buoyant presence of his mother. Although his father was often away on duty, young Delmar had felt the safety of a home and those that loved him which was a far cry from the shabbiness and abuse of his life now.
Chapter Three
The morning dawned warm and early when Delmar saw his brother stagger out of the house toward the postal box on the road. Seeing Dorn this early in the morning after his usual late night carousing was a bit disturbing, so Delmar moved to a different part of the garden to avoid notice for as long as possible.
The six weeks since he had started working for the Hassels had been relatively peaceful. He knew the wages of his labor were keeping Dorn in a steady state of inebriation, but more importantly, it meant a respite from his usual outbursts of rage that were always directed at the younger brother. Even inebriated, Dorn knew better than to make it too hard for Delmar. After all, he did have to work.
Dorn finally made it to the mailbox and pulled out the previous day’s offering from the rural postal carrier. He considered the gathering and perusal of the mail his personal prerogative and had beaten that point into his younger brother years before. It allowed him to have yet one more measure of control over Delmar.
Sifting through the stack, Dorn was pleased to find the regular check from the Hassels for Delmar’s labor. Tearing it open, Dorn grunted with satisfaction, noting that he’d kept his hours regular and high. The bonus they had included for Delmar would be spent for better uses than fixing up their old farm. Invested properly, Dorn anticipated the warm glow of liquid refreshment at his regular watering hole later that night.
In place of the usual packet of correspondence material for Delmar, Dorn found an envelope from the school. It was marked urgent. His interception and destruction of their previous letter to Delmar had proven fruitful. Opening it, he read with satisfaction that Delmar’s enrollment had been dropped for lack of response to the previous missive or return of materials in a timely fashion. Dorn chuckled to himself. He was going to enjoy breaking the news to his brother. It also meant that Delmar now had more time to earn outside income.
“Delmar!” Dorn bellowed as he walked back toward the house with the incriminating letter clutched firmly in his hand. Having seen his breakfast waiting in the warmer, Dorn suspected Delmar was out somewhere doing his regular chores before he had to report down the road at the Hassel farm.
Delmar appeared around the side of an outbuilding from where he’d been working in the garden. “Get over here, you loser!” Dorn yelled at him. The boy dutifully approached him, a wary expression on his face. He could see the glint of mischief in his older brother’s eyes.
“What do you want?” Delmar asked evenly when he stopped close enough to hear but still out of range of Dorn’s fists.
“Got a letter from those correspondence people,” Dorn spat back. “You failed, you loser! They dropped you!”
“What?”
“They canceled you!” Dorn laughed wickedly as he waved the incriminating letter in his brother’s face. “You didn’t stay in touch or turn in your work. I knew you were too lazy or too stupid to make it work.”
Dorn dropped the letter from the correspondence school in the mud and stepped on it with a twist of his shoe.
“But…” Delmar started to say but was cut short by another derisive laugh from his brother.
“Now finish whatever you’re doing and get down to the Hassels!” Dorn ordered, waving the check. “This makes you more available and I expect it to show! And you better have more hours next week. They’re not happy and you wouldn’t want to get fired, would you?”
Delmar’s face blanched. Leaving his crestfallen brother staring after him, Dorn headed back into the house still laughing aloud. Delmar steeled himself and left the crumpled letter where it lay and turned back to his work in the garden.
∞∞∞
The Hassels noticed the black cloud of despair hanging over Delmar’s head when he arrived considerably early for work. The boy walked into the barn and started doing his regular chores just as he had done many times before.
“Looks like it’s time to spring our surprise,” Agnes observed while they both watched from inside the house.
“I’ll call him in.” Robert said. He stepped to the back door and onto the porch.
“I’ll get the stuff ready,” Agnes said behind him.
“Delmar!” Robert called. A moment later, the youth’s head appeared around the barn door. “Come on inside.”
After leaving his boots in the mudroom, Delmar stepped hesitantly into the kitchen. Was it possible Dorn had been telling the truth about the Hassels not being satisfied with his work? Were they going to fire him and force him to face the wrath of his angry brother?
“Sit down,” Robert said, waving him to one of the chairs.
Agnes appeared, and after setting a bundle on the floor beside Robert, headed over to the counter. It was clear to her that Delmar thought that he was somehow in trouble. His face paled at the thought of what he would face from his brother if he lost his job. Robert sensed the discomfort of the boy and sympathized. He’d tried to bring the abuse to the attention of the courts but was rebuffed by the social agency in charge of Delmar’s oversight.
“I know you’re wondering why I called you in here,” the old farmer began. His wife set a piece of pie in front of the boy and served herself and her husband. Delmar’s confusion was evident, but he didn’t speak.
While she poured the coffee, Mrs. Hassel scolded him, “Oh, come on Delmar,” she said with mock seriousness. “You don’t think we serve coffee and pie to someone we’re about to fire, do you?”
Delmar stared from one friendly face to the other, and for the first time that morning, dared to hope.
“As I was saying,” Robert continued, “I want to talk to you about some things. The fields are done and the crops are in. That pretty much finishes what I hired you for.”
Delmar’s face paled again. He looks like he’s still expecting a beating, the man thought disgustedly.
“Look, I’ll be plain. I know your brother is little better than a cur and treats you like some kind of doormat,” Robert said. “I don’t intend to treat you the same.”
The old farmer paused for a moment. “Even though the fields are in, I expect you here every morning by nine. I’ve got some heavy work for you to start on tomorrow.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?” The boy was now more confused than ever.
“These!” said Robert with a grin as he hefted the school materials onto the table. Delmar was speechless for a minute and just stared at the books.
“I know things are pretty rough at your house and that your brother has been preventing you from studying until I hired you away. So starting tomorrow, I’m hiring you to come here and study.”
The room was silent while Delmar tried to deal with the shock of his good fortune. When he did try to speak, all that happened was his mouth hung open and stayed that way.
“L
ook, Delmar,” Agnes said as she shoved a fork full of pie into the boy’s open mouth, “we know you love to learn, and we want to help.”
“Your future is higher than that old farm, and we want to see you make it,” Robert said. Delmar still could not believe the turn of events that had taken place in his life. One minute he feared he would lose his job and fall under the wrath of his brother. The next minute he was on his way to fulfilling at least a small part of his dream – an education. He began to cry and laugh at the same time. After that, the mood brightened considerably in the little kitchen as the three enjoyed their pie and each other’s company for some time.
∞∞∞
Since that day, Delmar eagerly looked forward to going to work at the Hassel farm. Not that the studies weren’t work. Mr. Hassel took the position of schoolmaster seriously and drilled him diligently. He made sure the boy applied himself to the hard sciences and mathematics.
Mr. Hassel was surprised by the ability of his student, and Delmar made short work of the material. Using his own extensive reference library, Mr. Hassel supplemented the correspondence courses and pushed Delmar to reach beyond his own capabilities.
History and civics were Delmar’s real problems—subjects that he just couldn’t seem to grasp. He knew Erdinata was a member of Galactic Axia, a commonwealth of planets spread throughout the galaxy. But to a young boy on a non-descript planet on the outer fringe of the galaxy, the concept of hundreds of worlds making up one galactic commonwealth was beyond his comprehension. He just didn’t understand the Imperial concept as a whole. He didn’t understand how so many people could agree to live in harmony with each other while he faced constant turmoil at home.
Of course, he had never been off the planet, even though he knew his father had died in space. Nevertheless, Mr. Hassel understood the Axia and drilled Delmar unmercifully on it. But some reason, it just wasn’t sinking in. All Robert could figure was that Delmar had some deeply ingrained preconceived notions preventing him from understanding his heritage. History and civics were both mysteries to the boy and there was no denying it.
Mr. Hassel pushed back from the table and examined the boy sitting across from him. These verbal lessons just weren’t good enough. They needed something more.
“Maybe what we need is a field trip,” Mr. Hassel said. “Do you think you can get away from home tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sure,” Delmar answered. “Dorn is off with his friends at some kind of race over at Keeler.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at your house at six sharp tomorrow morning. We’ll go have a day of fun.”
∞∞∞
Early the next morning, Delmar had just finished getting dressed when he heard Mr. Hassel’s ground car stop in the Eagleman front yard. The boy looked at the clock on his bedroom wall.
“Six on the dot,” Delmar said aloud. “Guess I better get a wiggle on.” A few minutes later he was securely strapped into the front seat of Mr. Hassel’s car and they were speeding down the country road toward Keeler.
“Where are we going?” Delmar asked.
Mr. Hassel looked at the boy and smiled. “I’ve rented a flitter for the day. We’re taking a day trip over to Jasper Station.”
“To the spaceport?”
“Yep, to the spaceport. I want you to see the Axia up close.”
“Do you think we could take a ride on a real spaceship?”
“I doubt it,” Mr. Hassel answered. “But you can never tell. It just depends who’s on duty.”
Mr. Hassel was in the rental office for only a few minutes. Delmar had no idea a person could rent a flitter like renting a ground car. He had seen military flitters from time to time, and he knew there were sky cabs, but not personal rentals.
Mr. Hassel parked his ground car in a covered garage and motioned for Delmar to get out and follow him. “I didn’t know you were a pilot,” Delmar said to Mr. Hassel.
“Oh sure. You’ll find out a lot of things about me if you’ll keep your eyes open.”
“Can you pilot the big ships too?”
“Oh no,” answered Mr. Hassel. “I was a combat infantry officer, not a fleet officer. But the opportunity to learn is always available for a person willing to apply and qualify themselves.”
Mr. Hassel looked over at the young boy. “Of course, not just anyone can walk in off the street and rent one of these things,” he continued. “You have to hold a valid small-craft license, and you have to stay current with a minimum number of flight hours.”
“How do you stay current out there on the farm?” the boy wanted to know.
“Mrs. Hassel and I go to Jasper Station four times a year for a week of refresher and qualification training.”
“You do?”
“Sure. Don’t you remember when we were gone on vacation for a week last month?” the farmer asked. “We weren’t out shopping for corn seed, you know.”
“Do you mean to say Mrs. Hassel is a pilot too?”
“You bet your life she is,” Mr. Hassel answered. “She has more flight time than I do. She was with the fleet, you know.”
Delmar had no idea the old couple were flyers. He sat in the passenger seat of the flitter and strapped in while Mr. Hassel performed a preflight check of the flitter’s systems. When he was satisfied the craft was flight-worthy, he looked over at the boy and told him to hold on to his hat, they were on their way.
It only took a minute for Mr. Hassel to receive departure clearance from Keeler operations. Then with a flick of his left hand on the axis ball and a gentle nudge on the throttle bar, the flitter shot straight up into the air. Delmar felt the ground suddenly fall away from him and soon found himself face-to-face with one of the most beautiful clouds he had ever seen.
Mr. Hassel looked over at Delmar and smiled. “This is a better classroom, isn’t it?”
“You bet it is!” Delmar laughed. “I’ve never been in one of these things before!” Mr. Hassel advanced the throttle and the flitter began to glide gracefully through the clouds.
“Anyway,” Mr. Hassel said, picking back up on the lecture he had interrupted yesterday, “a by-product of a ship’s drive is both the canceling of inertia inside the ship and the creation of a repulsion field around the outside that prevents collisions with the debris of space. That’s why you didn’t feel the gravity pull against your body when we accelerated on take-off. The drive on this ship is different from the early ships which used what was referred to as a bed-springs drive system, so called because of the array of rods sticking out the rear of the ship.”
Mr. Hassel reached over and took Delmar’s left hand and placed it on the throttle bar hanging from the ceiling of the flitter. “Control of the ships is through a simple throttle and axis-ball control system. The throttle consists of an iron bar hanging from the ceiling similar to what one sees in old steam locomotives. It’s common in all Axia ships, from the largest cruiser right down to this simple flitter. Go ahead and give it a little nudge.”
Delmar pushed the throttle bar forward ever so slightly. Mr. Hassel spun the axis ball and nosed the flitter down below the clouds. Delmar could see the ground far below them racing by at great speed.
“The axis ball is mounted next to the control chair and is rolled by the pilot’s left hand to change the attitude and direction of the ship,” Mr. Hassel continued. “You can’t reach it from there, but watch this.”
While Delmar watched, Mr. Hassel used the very tips of the fingers on his left hand to caress the axis ball. The flitter moved from side-to-side in a gentle sweeping motion, reminding Delmar of the swing on his own front porch.
“It must be dangerous out there in space,” Delmar interjected. “How does the fleet protect themselves?”
“Of course, this flitter isn’t armed,” Mr. Hassel answered, “but weaponry aboard line ships consist of various rays, from the small swivel-mounts all the way up to the large ray that runs along the axis of the ship.”
A voice over the headset instructed Mr. Hassel to as
cend to five-thousand feet to clear the way for an incoming deep-space transport. He answered while at the same time rolling the axis ball back just a touch. The flitter nosed upward and leveled off at the requested altitude.
Delmar watched his teacher operate the simple controls. I could do that, he thought. A few minutes later a large transport ship passed below them, apparently heading for the field outside of Keeler.
“Torpedoes, or torps, are also used,” Mr. Hassel continued. “Both the rays and the torps are able to fire over a distance of better than ten thousand miles, although they are more effective at closer range.”
It didn’t take long for the flitter to reach Jasper Station, even though the station was several hundred miles from Big Valley and the Hassel farm. Delmar had never been to the military installation before and was fascinated at the sight of hundreds of ships of all sizes and shapes. Military personnel in black service uniforms were everywhere.
“We’re going right over there.” Mr. Hassel pointed at a long, low building at the edge of the airfield. “That’s where my old unit is stationed. We’ll see who’s on duty.”
After receiving clearance to land the flitter in a visitor zone, Delmar and Mr. Hassel caught a shuttle bus to the ground forces zone of the base. The building Mr. Hassel had pointed out seemed so small from the air, but now loomed over them. It looked large enough to house a whole armored division.
Mr. Hassel showed his identification card at the reception desk, and after signing Delmar in on a visitor board, was waved through by a uniformed man with two stripes on his sleeve. However, this man was not wearing a service dress uniform like the one he’d seen before, but instead wore a simple black jumpsuit with his name on a leather nameplate over his right pocket. Delmar wondered what kind of name Hilipines was and where the man was from.
Delmar followed Mr. Hassel down a hallway in the massive building. He sure seems to know where he’s going, thought Delmar. Mr. Hassel looked in at several offices along the way, but moved on quickly. He finally pushed through a set of heavy wooden doors where Delmar found himself inside a large hanger-like building. The room was filled with armored vehicles of every description.
