“I believe I know,” Carl said with a slight laugh. “The network’s V Phone system just went on overload. People all over the Commonwealth are pledging monetary support.”
Jim slowly turned and started down the street. “I want to take a walk.”
“Can you give us information on what we’re seeing, Jim?” Carl asked.
“Yes, that house on the right belongs to the Carpen... belonged to the Carpenters. The one on the left had been vacant for years. It was something to do with a legal battle over the will of the former owner. Across the street’s where my very good friend Sid Fajardo lived. He was a Filipino American.”
“A what American?” Carl said.
“Filipino,” Jim said. “He was from Tagbilaran in the Philippines.”
“Oh yes,” Carl said in a somber voice. “Could you explain to the audience who they were.”
“Doc,” Jim sighed. “You know more about the Exodus than I do.”
“They were one of the ethnicities that was lost in the Exodus,” Redmond said. “There are a number of countries in what was South East Asia, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, where the population either did not leave Old Earth or did and did not survive. There were some that had previously migrated to the United States, Canada and Australia, but over the last two thousand years, they intermarried with the general population.”
“I miss the Fajardos,” Jim said. “Sid’s son, Alvin, was my son’s best friend. They used to hang out together and get up to all sorts of mischief.”
“What is that ahead of you?” Carl said.
“At the corner, is an old gas station converted to an auto repair...” Jim paused as he stumbled over a variation between the image and the actual landscape.
“Keep walking and we’ll just listen in to your conversations,” Carl said.
They continued to walk down Dayton Street then turned right onto Phillips. Redmond took Jim by the arm to prevent further mishaps and Levin followed scanning the ground.
Halfway between his house and the WinnDixie supermarket Jim stopped to stare at a vacant block on his right.
“What happened to the house? There was a big house right here.”
Redmond tightened the grip on Jim’s shoulder. “This street came mostly from a video you shot from your car. As you passed this area, the camera was on the apartment block across the road. Your commentary on the video mentioned that a friend of yours, Juan Rodriguez, lived at number sixteen. This side of the street was not shown, so we left it as a vacant lot.”
Jim staggered slightly. “Damn,” he said. “A whole building lost forever. I want a beer. I’m going to the NCO club.”
“You’re going where?” Redmond asked while maintaining his tight grip.
“The club. I’ve walked the distance before. Had an argument with my wife and the car was broken down, so I walked.”
“One moment,” Redmond said. “Carl?”
“I’m here.”
“Jim’s having a slight emotional problem over the circumstance. I’m going to have to disconnect while we talk.”
“Quite understandable.”
“Connection terminated,” a tech said.
“Also disconnect from our support team,” Redmond said.
“All communications terminated,” the tech said.
“Very good,” the voice of Peter said. He was Jim’s old friend and Commonwealth Secret Service agent. “The voice analysts said the emotional readings were near perfect.”
“It wasn’t difficult,” Jim said. “The emotion was real. The guy that lived in the missing house was a friend of mine.”
“Tell us about the guy in the missing house,” Redmond said. “It might ease your mind if you let someone know about him.”
“His name was John; I can’t remember his last name. I used to go around to his place occasionally for a beer.”
“Anything else you remember about him?”
“His wife’s name was Victoria, two kids, I can’t remember their names.”
“You said on the video that a friend, Juan Rodriguez, lived in the apartments across the road. Can you see his apartment on the visor image?”
Jim turned and pointed. “There it is, second floor, the one on the left. Can you see it?”
Redmond chuckled. “You’re the only one that can see the image.”
Jim looked across the supermarket parking lot in the direction of K Mart. “Getting back to the financing, I wish there was another way,” he said. “It sounds like millions of ordinary people are about to put up billions to build this archeological resort.”
“It’ll be built,” Redmond said, “and with their money. Only part of the funds raised will go to our special project, the part you’ve invested. We have to cover the movement of money.”
“I can afford it,” Jim said.
“You’ll get it back a hundred times over,” Redmond said. “Our project not only has military but many commercial applications after the war’s over.”
“The Alliance has spies everywhere,” Peter said, “If they knew what your money was actually being used for, it would invite an immediate attack on Casia.”
“Agreed,” Redmond said. “If they even thought that a new weapon was being developed on your property instead of the assembly of equipment for an archeological project, that beautiful island of yours would be nothing but glass.”
“My property? That’s one thing I still can’t figure out. To me a property is something that the owner can walk around and kick every rock. There are some hills, valleys and creeks on that island that I haven’t even seen.”
“Well,” Peter said. “Looks like you have a life long quest. Constantly wandering, pissing on every tree to mark your territory. Maybe, when you’re one hundred and fifty years old, you’ll finally feel like you own it.”
“Won’t make it, the Docs say my life expectancy is only one hundred and thirty. Too much damage from my time on twenty first century Earth.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Peter said. “With some of the situations you’ve got yourself into since being here, on occasion, your life expectancy was no more than the age you were at the time.”
Jim’s laughed. “Changing the subject, I wish one of the other places where I lived was in better condition. I couldn’t stand Killeen Texas when I lived here. I had plenty of photographs of Hawaii, I was at Schofield Barracks Army post. That would’ve been a much better location. Why didn’t we check that out?”
“There was no point,” Redmond said. “The Hawaiian Islands were volcanic mountains rising from the sea floor. When the ocean dried up, where you lived became an extremely vulnerable mountaintop. With the current weather conditions and atmosphere, that mountain is probably one to two hundred meters shorter than it was.”
Jim exhaled and folded his arms. “And my parents place in St. Louis is now a hundred meters underground. Looks like Killeen is the only one we have.”
“There’s a call on your private line,” a voice announced. “It’s your son, Michael.”
“Put him through... Hey Mike, what’s up?”
“Are you all right dad? We’re watching on 3V.”
“I’m fine. When we left this place I had no intention, what so ever, of returning. Well, here I am again. It seems that fate’s a strange power. Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to that adventure camp on Bachoff?”
“Tomorrow dad, today’s local Thursday, I go on local Friday.”
“That’s right,” Jim said. “Today’s standard Tuesday. I was just on the line to Batalavia where it’s local Saturday. I wish someone would invent a way to have all these planets spinning at the same rate so I won’t get confused.”
“Well, we’re becoming a grouchy old fart aren’t we?”
Jim laughed. “Any more comments like that and I’ll rip your arms off and beat you with the soggy ends. I’m only forty two and as life expectancy has doubled, that makes me twenty one in Old Earth terms.”
“Yes, but you think like a modern
one hundred and ten year old.”
“That did it,” Jim said with a smile. “You’re over my knee when I get home.”
“You mean when I get home. I’m taking the strato to Uncle Halbert’s. He’s going to an agricultural conference on Pellan and will be taking the same liner as far as New Hope. We’ll get to the liner on his shuttle.”
“What? You’re above taking a commercial shuttle?”
“Well, you have both the Lydia’s shuttles, Colin has his, and it’s a long strato ride to the Carlisle spaceport. Uncle Halbert’s farm is a lot closer.”
“You’ll get your own shuttle in a year. You know high school graduation’s the ticket. Just get those science subject grades up. Jumping from star system to star system like you’re on a field trip to Houston, who do you think you are...”
“Hold it Jim,” Peter interrupted. “You’re having a psychological perspective conflict. Being here, you have reverted to thinking in Old Earth terms. The trip he’s going on is about the same as one to Houston... whatever that is.”
“Fuck the psychoanalysts.” Jim raised an arm and pointed. “And Houston’s about two hundred miles in that direction. It’s where this space shit started, so fuck you.”
“Well, I would be in that darling, but your psychological profile reads that you strongly favor females, plus the fact that you’re married to one. I just said that to... as you say... bug you.”
“Fuck you anyway.”
“Hey there Uncle Peter,” Michael said.
“Hi to you, sweetie.”
“Just a moment there, what’re you calling my son?”
“You have no problem with the continuation of the genetic pattern,” Peter said. “His profile, in that area, is two points above yours.”
“See dad, I’m probably going to be a bigger womanizer than you were at my age.”
“Just a second there son, I think we had better sit down and have a long talk when you get back from camp.”
“Ok, looking forward to it. Have to go now. Only halfway through packing. End transmission.”
Jim chuckled as he scanned the teller machines in front of the Bank of Central Texas. “Well, I do have one up on him when I eventually tell him what he’ll be carrying in his suitcase on the way back.” Jim turned to Redmond. “They did give him the instructions?”
“Yes, we got the coded message about an hour ago. They said he accepted the instructions without question.”
“Of course he did,” Jim snapped. “He’s a soldier’s son, he follows orders.”
“Yes,” Peter commented. “The analysts said...”
“Screw the analysts,” Jim interrupted. “I know my son better than they do.”
“Jim,” Redmond said. “This place is having an effect on you. As you Earth people say, you’re becoming a grouchy old fart.”
Jim nodded. “So, has the agent on Bachoff been notified?”
“Yes,” Peter said. “He’ll pick up the device from our agent and then give it to Mike just before he leaves to return to Casia.”
“And it does look like one of those souvenir things?”
“Yes,” Redmond said. “It looks and scans exactly like one of those Time Stone souvenirs you can buy in any tourist store. It’ll pass through any known detector.”
Jim chuckled to himself again. “Carrying the ultimate weapon of war in a suitcase while on vacation, eh?”
“Well it’s not exactly what’s in his suitcase,” Levin commented. “It’s only...”
“I know that,” Jim snapped. “I was speaking philosophically. Levin, would you go buy yourself a sense of irony, and while you’re at it, a sense of humor as well.”
“Disconnect visual,” Redmond commanded. “Jim, we’ve got to get you back to the shuttle and out of here. This place is affecting you. You do not usually jump on people like you’re doing now.”
“This place depressed me when I lived here, and it’s just as bad now. Let’s go.”
The image vanished leaving Jim with a view of swirling dust clouds and shimmering heat. The foursome turned and headed in the direction in which they had come.
“Any more on how the thing works?” Jim asked as they trudged up a small hill.
“No,” Redmond said with a heavy sigh. “It looks like we’ll just have to be satisfied that we can duplicate the silicon matrix of the Time Stone. It was also fortunate that we could figure out its modular structure. Replicating the whole thing would make it too large for our purpose and too expensive.”
“Are they sure the thing’ll pass for a hunk of space rock as it enters an Alliance planet’s atmosphere?”
“No. They’re figuring out another delivery system than disguising it as a meteorite.”
Jim smiled to himself. “I liked the meteorite suggestion better. Streaking toward the ground at a thousand miles an hour, then blasting a two meter deep crater is quite exciting.”
“As I was saying,” Levin said. “The package will not be in it. It is...”
“Levin,” Jim snapped again. “I told you to get yourself a sense of humor.”
“We have to get you out of here fast sweetie,” Peter said as the shuttle’s airlock came into view. “This place’s definitely affecting you.”
“And you...” Jim said as he turned and looked through two faceplates and into Peter’s eyes. “Why don’t you find yourself a nice woman, settle down, and have half a dozen kids.”
“Oh yeuck...” Peter said as he grabbed Jim by the shoulder and shoved him through the airlock door.
Chapter 3
Michael sat back in the pilot’s seat of his strato. It skimmed the waters of the narrow straits between Doris Island and the mainland. He watched the white capped waves on the forward monitor. He had a strato license to fly it manually, but he preferred the computer to handle distances longer than a couple of hundred kilometers. It was a fifteenth birthday present. Even though his father was one of the five richest men in the galaxy, he had to work for everything he got. With the strato, it was his school grades. He hated the technical subjects such as thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and was dreading inertial physics which was a compulsory class next year. He preferred the humanities: literature, poetry and history. To get the strato he had to raise his grades on the less preferred subjects to a B.
Work didn’t stop at education. His father demanded that he and his brother clean their own rooms, a rarity in this time of automated servants and house maintenance devices. He didn’t object to the work, he was proud of it. Casian’s were brought up on the traditions of Old Earth, two thousand years in the past. They were a rugged people by modern standards who actually cooked their own food. He didn’t mind that the more ‘civilized’ planets of the galaxy looked down on them for their independents. The only thing he didn’t do for himself was to fly the strato long distance.
“Strato AX592, this is coastal ecology defense,” came a voice through the communications system.
“This is AX592, go.”
“Methane cloud at your one o’clock. We are about to pop it, reroute, twenty left.”
“Confirm eco defense, rerouting. Computer, twenty left for five minutes on that heading then recalculate course to original destination.”
“Recalculating rout,” replied the onboard computer, “new rout will increase travel time by seven minutes.”
The problem with living on an island, or anywhere on a coastline was clouds of methane. The original primordial atmosphere of the newly converted planet lay at the bottom of the oceans in the form of billions of tons of decaying, dead bacteria. As it hadn’t yet been covered by sediment, methane and other gasses bubbled to the surface.
“Computer, front monitor, thirty right.”
The scene of his monitor display shifted to the right. Michael wanted to watch the explosion as the coastal defense service ignited the cloud before it reached a populated area on the coast.
He saw the white beam of the laser followed by a huge ball of orange flame.
&nbs
p; “Shock waves detected,” the onboard computer said, “minor buffeting in twenty seconds.”
“Computer, seat restraints,” Michael said and arms protruded from his seat and gently held his hips.
Michael sat back and relaxed, adjusting the monitor to view straight ahead at the rapidly approaching coastline. The barren cliffs bore scars of recent explosions from igniting methane clouds. No sandy beaches exited on the planet. It was far too newly converted for sand to form and collect on the shoreline.
The strato quickly reached land. For the first couple of kilometers it was a desolate landscape with green hills in the distance.
“Changing direction twenty right,” the onboard computer said. The craft was turning back and compensating for the correction.
The countryside changed abruptly to fields of grass with the occasional grove of trees. Michael looked up to see farm houses in the distance.
“Computer,” Michael said. “Has Halbert been notified of my ETA?”
“Affirmative,” the computer replied. “He has acknowledged receipt of the message.”
Michael sat back as one farm house after another passed beneath his craft. He finally spotted the green roof of Halbert’s house surrounded by rows on rows of pear trees.
Michael grabbed the controls. “Switch to manual,” he said.
“Manual operation confirmed,” the computer said.
Michael swung the craft in a broad arc around the farmhouse and approached from the east. Another strato and a space shuttle sat on a landing pad. His father’s friend Halbert was quite wealthy. He had the foresight to farm pears, a fruit that was extinct for sixteen hundred years, but returned to mankind by Michael’s father from genetic material extracted from a can of fruit cocktail.
Michael picked one of the six vacant landing pads and aligned his craft for a direct approach. Three figures stood and watched. He knew one of them to be Halbert.
Another of the reception committee was Chochuschuvio a Native American of the Hopi tribe. Chochuschuvio or Chock as he was known to his friends was also brought to this time by the device known as the Time Stone. They estimated that the device captured him in the early 1500s. The man had heard vague rumors of a bearded lighter skinned people arriving in North America but he had never seen one and didn’t know of horses.
Victim of Circumstance (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 3) Page 3
