The Fourth Guardian

by Geoff Geauterre

  "My luggage..."

  "Did you have any at Stonehenge?"

  "Er, no, I didn't."

  "Well then."

  She clenched her teeth. “I see."

  "Don't worry now. Go on. Get dressed and Uncle Anthony will explain everything."

  She hugged him.

  "My little mouse,” he murmured, tears starting. “I thought you were gone."

  When the situation was explained, she sighed and looked around in the same manner he had done earlier.

  "Are you game, girl?"

  What could she say? This was her uncle, the only family she ever knew. Scientist, explorer, and politician, who once laughingly summed up all of man's achievements in the design of the toilet.

  "So the one upstairs is Regis. An extraterrestrial. And the one in the kitchen making sandwiches is his associate. And pretty soon, we'll all be running for our lives."

  "I know it sounds crazy, my little mouse, but it's true. The stethoscope is in the drawer over there if you want to check it out."

  She shook her head. “After Stonehenge, I'd believe anything. I just want to make certain what we're doing, where we're going, and whether we'll get there in one piece."

  He looked at her in pride. “You always were the planner, my dear. But the facts are as I told you."

  Roger came in with several plastic bags of sandwiches, a couple of thermos bottles, and the announcement that the people in the car on the back road had switched to another team.

  "You're not a chauffeur, then?"

  "Nope."

  "And Regis, upstairs, is...?"

  "Yep."

  "I don't think I like you."

  "You'll get over it. Part of your conditioning is to distrust people who won't immediately accept you."

  She shook her head. “What are in those sandwiches?"

  He handed the bags over. “Everything, including the kitchen sink."

  "And the thermos bottles?"

  "Hot tea and milk. I didn't know if either of you like sugar."

  "We don't."

  "Good."

  Sir Pembroke hid a grin.

  "Listen up,” said Regis, walking into the room. “You two will make the first leg of the journey yourselves. You'll be met in Tokyo by friends. The password is arc. Take this. It should help you along."

  He handed over ten thousand pounds. Elizabeth's eyes opened wide.

  "Tear up your credit cards. Don't sign anything with your real names. Never give your destination. Travel around. Check to make sure you've lost anyone trying to track you. Change your clothes several times. Go in different directions. If you have to separate, make certain to take cabs to a meeting place, and then check if the other cab has been followed. If it has, signal and drive past to another meeting place."

  Sir Pembroke nodded. “I understand. It's necessary not to be followed to Tokyo."

  "What we're building out there is nothing less than another home, and we have to be careful. We can't make too many blunders. We can't attract so much attention at the beginning that we might give someone the idea of stopping us. I cannot emphasize this enough. A mistake, before we're ready, could become deadly."

  "We understand,” said Sir Anthony, squeezing Elizabeth's hand. “Go on, now. We've enough to take care of, and the time we have left won't be long."

  Regis nodded curtly, and they followed him into the driveway where Roger had changed into his regular clothing and was standing beside the driver's door of the Jaguar.

  This time he smiled, and she faltered a step. He looked different from the time he'd been staring at her in the rearview mirror, and tentatively, she smiled back, unaware that she blushed.

  * * * *

  "Well, Regis."

  "Well, what?"

  "You've got your master scientist in Negochi, your master administrator in Pembroke, your master handyman in me. What's next?"

  "More money."

  "Can we do it in one run?"

  "We have to,” said Regis grimly, pointing back the way they came. “Once those two disappear the British Empire will be looking for them, and unless we have a safe haven, everyone could be in jeopardy."

  "So, you're talking about a lot of money."

  "Yes, I am."

  "Well, when you want the best in security, machinery, and electronics, you're talking Japanese and German."

  "And we won't have much time getting everything together,” Regis added. “After what's happened here, I have a suspicion that sirens will go off before too long."

  Above them, as if their passing were creating an atmospheric disturbance, the sky grew dark, and lightning shot down with a wash of heavy rain. Except for them, no one was aware that anyone had gone anywhere.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Six

  Roger looked around with a perplexed expression. “Will you please tell me what we're doing here?"

  The streets along the wharfs of Marseilles were bursting with people moving in every direction. The heady scents of basil, paprika, parsley, saffron, garlic, and fish assaulted the senses.

  They traversed a wharf where workmen, who shouted and cursed, struggled to pass by one another. Overheard, hawkers, purchasers, merchants, and cart pushers advertised their prices as being more reasonable than anyone else's. Which started other bouts of shouting.

  However, enmeshed in the fabric of runaway enterprise and magnificent scenery, something did not feel right. Suspicious looks cast their way, which was in direct contrast to an industry made up of mixed commerce and tourism.

  Regis stopped to pick up a couple of slices of honeydew melon, and as they ate them, scanning the crowd, a curious look came over his face.

  "There may be hope for your race yet."

  "Oh?” Roger looked around curiously. “That's a bit of a twist from your usual sunny premonition of doom and gloom, isn't it?"

  The melons went into a waste bin as he gestured. “This place looks like my father's warehousing districts at the dock ports.” He sighed, homesick. “I feel an urge to lose myself in it and mingle."

  He clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, and for one bittersweet moment, imagined what it would have been like had destiny not focused its baleful intentions upon him.

  "It seems as if it were here before me still, untouched, and simply waiting for me to turn my hand to it."

  Roger couldn't have been more startled had the other announced they were to become fishmongers. Never had he imagined Regis, in that other existence, of having had a family, or that he'd ever been involved in a business enterprise. It seemed out of place.

  "Warehousing?"

  "Oh, yes, my friend. Don't look so doubtful. Warehousing, transport, import, export, chemical testing, quality control. I tell you there was no end to it, and you wouldn't believe how exciting it all was!” He whirled around, taking it all in.

  "It was the lifeblood of entire worlds. The Galaxy's Marketplace, we'd call it. Of course, by true Galactic standards, it was small, but by ours it was magnificent.” He chuckled. “You think England is poorly off with their need to import everything from fuel to food? Imagine the problems entire worlds have in similar circumstances."

  Then he looked up wistfully. “It was the means whereby stellar systems existed, communicated, mixed, and there were such worlds you could never imagine. Ice worlds, desert worlds, worlds where the only being you might call a friend would be some native guide who looked like a creeping vine. There were places where crustaceans ruled, whales ruled, insects ruled, and man...” He smiled. “Man was merely a newcomer."

  Roger grinned. “Felt out of place, huh?"

  "Out of place and resenting every moment."

  Roger frowned. “But, warehouses? That sounds like a lot of influence. If your folks had that kind of influence, then why get booted out? Was it political?"

  "My friend, there's influence, and then there's influence. I'm afraid that what my father could throw into the breach wasn't enough. It wouldn't have saved me
. I was guilty of high crimes and lucky not to be dealt with in the usual fashion."

  "Which was?"

  A shrug of the shoulders. “Brain wiping. Execution."

  Roger shivered. “Doesn't sound appealing."

  "It wasn't."

  "But—but you're here!"

  Regis reached over and hauled Roger in with a quick grab just as the other was about to be run over by a cart filled with barrels.

  "It's quite simple, old chap. You see, I passed this test no one's supposed to pass, and they were stuck."

  "What test was that?"

  A quick grin. “It was a fluke."

  Roger felt his right temple. He was getting a migraine trying to have a normal conversation with this man. “These abilities ... correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only beginning to get the gist of it, but aren't they normal for your people?"

  "No. The machine they tested me with was the equivalent of your lie detector and the electric chair. Answer wrong, and you were fried. Answer right, and you were spared torture. Only problem ... you were killed anyway."

  "If I say, I think I see, don't get me wrong. It's just an expression."

  "I did the unexpected. I told the truth. I kept on telling the truth, and as embarrassing as it was ... the machine recognized a genetic trait that was believed to be extinct. And then it did something else."

  "Which was?"

  "It condoned my actions. Justified what I did. Condemned and exonerated in the same moment. I was a superior being."

  "Hooah!"

  "Yes, well, it was fortunate the smart lads in control back home didn't want a planet-wide riot, so I was sent packing."

  Roger stared at him. “But your abilities."

  "There's the irony. They were so busy covering themselves. They messed around with my genes. I was given a boost of intuition, a little more strength, a little extra speed ... that sort of thing. They gave me no choice. I was knocked out, and they rearranged my DNA. The powers that be could say they gave me the best chance to survive my environment, and no one could fault them for that."

  "But it did more than that?"

  Regis nodded. “Apparently, it released something in me. Something peacefully slumbering. The next thing I knew I was on a different world, with a different mind. That was the joke."

  "I don't hear you laugh though."

  "Well, the joke may be on them."

  "Why's that?"

  "Back home, under President Amaron, the government is corrupt. It's a corporate oligarchy. You could say a state of fascism exists where the people should rule for the common good, but it doesn't work that way."

  "What do you mean?"

  "They panicked when they realized what I was. That wouldn't have happened if we lived in a balanced society."

  "So they got rid of you."

  "Their first mistake."

  "And their second?"

  "Underestimating the reaction of the people. We're not like your bunch, you know. We're more anarchistic. Sure, we're as slow to wake up to outrage as anyone else, but when we get started...” Regis grinned, nasty. “We can get ugly about it."

  "Revolutions are a staple in your culture?"

  Regis looked at him in pity. “How could democracies exist without them?"

  Roger skipped out of the way of another cart. “Sounds like your people wrote the Declaration of Independence and didn't bother adding anything."

  "Now that's interesting. I've seen copies of your Parliamentary Rules and the Constitution and even your Bill of Rights. Isn't the presentation the way a message is truly revealed? In your world, as in mine, the governments take the bread, and the people are given the crust. However, in my world, there's a fine line that mustn't be crossed. I think Amaron has crossed it. Others know it. Which explained the panic, wouldn't you think?"

  "Yeah, well, we're trying to figure ourselves out. Now, please be so good as to tell me what in the devil you did to make them nervous?"

  A shrug of indifference. “Nothing, really."

  "Bullshit. What was it you did that so upset them? I'll keep asking all day long unless you tell me."

  "Well,” Regis grudgingly admitted. “I had this problem."

  Roger took out a handkerchief to mop his face. “Did you know this place comes without air-conditioning? Let me guess, you were addicted to something? Some sort of forbidden drug."

  "No!” came the objection, but then he hesitated. “But perhaps you're right. I never thought of it in those terms."

  "Great. So you were found and condemned."

  "It was a misunderstanding."

  "You were exiled because of a misunderstanding?"

  "The greater crime was interference in other cultures. The subject of my, er, indiscretions wasn't important in light of that."

  "Ah. Indiscretions."

  "I executed murderers."

  A momentary pause. “I take it you didn't hunt them up in their prison cells."

  "No."

  "So no arrests were made."

  "No."

  "There were no trials for these villains."

  "Fraid not."

  Roger swallowed. “Executions."

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't they find you before?"

  "I was working my way up through primitive cultures."

  "Regis, you're making me nervous."

  "Relax, it wasn't that serious."

  "Not serious. We're in first class on our way to Madrid. I ask for a cup of tea, and you give a jerk that drops you in the aisle. Was there some kind of a connection, or what?"

  Regis had a twinkle of respect in his eyes. “Now that's astute of you. And the answer to your question is yes."

  "Don't keep me in suspense. What the devil was it? What was so important we transferred flights, made a hundred and eighty degree turn, and had to catch—just barely—a local hop back here?"

  Regis stopped to let a couple of nuns pass them, both shaking fists at a merchant trying to evade the confrontation they were bent on making, but he was too late.

  Regis grinned. “I think he sold them a bill of goods."

  "Don't sidetrack. What was it?"

  "Sorry."

  "Don't be sorry. Just tell me what we're doing here."

  "Turning around was necessary."

  "Explain."

  They stopped under an umbrella on a walkway, found it part of a bistro in the street, and sat to order drinks. Regis explained what was happening.

  Roger drank his tea in silence. He asked for a refill. He sipped it.

  "What you're telling me is that you get this urge to exterminate vermin."

  "That's a rather cavalier way of putting it, but essentially, that's what I do. It's an urge I cannot deny."

  "Ah...” Roger looked off in the distance.

  "If you want you can take the rest of the money and walk away. I won't think ill of you."

  "When you speak of getting rid of these types ... what exactly, if you don't mind being a tad more explicit, do you mean?"

  "I mean, my friend, I was chosen to be an executioner. When I find monsters, whatever their form or inclination, I hunt them down and eliminate them."

  Roger's mind was in a whirl. “So, correct me if I'm wrong. You've come across that sort here? How do you know? I mean, no one took out an advert. How could you know?"

  "I sensed it."

  "You kill people."

  "I prefer thinking of it as exterminating dangerous pests."

  "You're a murderer."

  "No, Roger, killer. Killing is the taking of life, and there are all sorts of reasons. Survival, protection of the innocent, food, territory, war ... but cold-blooded murder is something else. There's nothing warm about it, nothing face-saving, nothing defensible. The only way you could describe it adequately is the taking of life for sport. Like hunting foxes or deer or bears."

  "I like to think we're weaning ourselves of that characteristic."

  "You're failing."

  "Thanks for telling me."


  "Don't worry. I'm not going to hunt down sportsmen. Although, in my mind they wouldn't be much of a loss. I execute those who take the lives of fellow beings and know exactly what they're doing."

  Roger was dumbfounded. “So, if they knew what they were doing was murder ... eventually you came around and did them in. Right?"

  "I suppose you could put it that way."

  "So what were you? A vigilante?"

  "Ah, now, there's the crux. I didn't know what I was. I only knew, that what I was doing was right."

  "But you got caught?"

  "I got caught."

  "And your people sent you up the river, or in this case, right out of their world."

  "You got it right on the nose."

  "You're watching too many film noire movies, you know that?"

  Regis nodded solemnly. “It seems to be the way you people really think. You don't say such phrases anymore, but believe me, the colloquialism is there behind other words."

  "So this machine they put you on nixed the idea of wiping you out, recognized some old horse in your genes that wanted preserving, and criminal or not, politics or not, to save their corrupt way of life they booted your ass out of the world. Does that sum it up?"

  "You should have been a lawyer. You have such a quaint way of boiling down shoe leather."

  "And this brain-wiping procedure you barely missed? That is ... if the machine didn't kill you right off the bat?"

  "The process wipes out your personality and replaces it with an artificial one, synthesized from a computer core. I met a couple that had been reprocessed and they even looked artificial."

  "Jesus H. Christ. That is the most barbaric torture I ever heard. It makes capital punishment something to laugh over."

  A tug's skipper screamed so loudly at a man entangled in a cargo net everyone on the dock stilled so they could listen and judge the quality of his curses.

  "Tell me more about this polygraph contraption you passed."

  "It's called the Block of Truth. It is a mystical device created over twelve thousand years ago. Capital classed prisoners are placed upon it during a tribunal's questioning, or when it is felt that a testing of some great person is in the balance. The Block of Truth reveals the inner soul. Those who fail the test are destroyed."

  Roger blinked. “And this saved you from execution or a brain wiping."