Book 7 of The traveler.

by Robin Miller

  Day 98

  But I woke up six hours later with pain in just about every part of my body. I went to sick bay for a sonic massage and a shot of muscle relaxer, feeling much better when I left. After breakfast we put two parts of the space station back together, and returned the 3rd to lunar-one. The ice miners started working again right away. Then I took my family back down to the planet. During all of this I listened to reports of where the pesky robots came down and how many. It seemed almost all of them were dead or destroyed before they hit the ground, and as for the others, a lot of people took the day off so they could hunt and smash the robots. They were still showing up here and there, but not in great numbers, and so far has not caused any major problems. We would likely be finding and smashing them for days.

  Kitty went back to work at her shop, and the children wanted to go to the bottling plant to work on a wall painting. After dropping them off and making sure all was right there, I made the rounds of all my businesses. The hat & dye factory, flying fright, the clinic, book factory, radio station, story land Park, White Dragon Hotel and the club, all seemed to be doing fine. Some had seen, or heard of people that had seen a small robot, but there were no problems.As a matter of fact, I seemed to be the only one that almost died in this war.

  I decided tomorrow would be best for a grand opening of the story land Park, so I had the radio stations announce it each hour, and told my park workers. It was well into lunchtime by the time I got back to twins. Surprisingly it had only taken them that amount of time to finish the wall painting in the lunch room. It was a very lifelike picture of all the people that worked there, eating lunch, they truly had a talent for painting. We went back to the club to eat, and I was in the mood for a meatball sandwich with hot peppers. The twins said that sounded good to them as well. We also a piece of fruit each, some nuts and a cheese-plate. The hot peppers were not all that hot, but it may have been the best they had on this world. It was just as well for the children, as burning one's tongue is an acquired taste. Jolly Jack, the bartender said he heard we did a good job at destroying those metal eaten robot spiders.

  I said, “the fleet of ships we blew up had a real affect.”

  He said, “I heard there is so much debris up there, that it will be coming down for months.”

  I said, “yes, it should be a real light show at night.”

  He said, “I heard there was some kind of freak storm last night with a lot of lightning.”

  I said, “I hope it fried a lot of metal spiders, but keep a club handy just in case.” He asked if I was coming to the party tonight, and I said, “the whole family will be here. It should be one hell of a party.”

  Jack, “you always put on great parties, is there anything else I can get you sir?” We said no thank you and he went back to his other customers. I then said to the children, "let's go mine some of Owsee’s gold in the mountains behind our house."

  They thought it may be fun, so we stopped at the house on the way for some picks, baskets and snacks. Then went to the caves where we had found the gold and Owsee’s mark on the wall.

  There was a nice vain to work on, but it didn't come easy. I/we had never dug gold before, and were mostly just playing at it, spending more time resting and drinking sodas than digging. But what better reason to play in the dirt than digging up a little gold. We talked a lot, mostly about Earth and all the places I had seen on my 30 years between here and there. Kitten had missed her music lesson, but neither one of us cared about that today. By the time we were ready to come home we had a basket almost full of gold, that we could not move, and my ship said it would be uncomfortable for her to carry it. So we took only one piece, and left the rest there to be picked up another time. We would have to bring a shuttle craft in to take the load. We then went back to the house, took care of the garden, picked some fruit, made some juice, and played a game of tag ball, all before Kitty got home. Then we all got dressed for the club and went to the party, we even brought our instruments with us. But my ship didn’t complain about Prowlers big conga drums, I suppose to her they were not as offensive as hundreds of pound of gold. When we got to the club the curtain was still closed and the ban was eating their supper, so we took our instruments to the stage. I cut the House music, opened the curtains and got on the microphone to say, "welcome to, “The read and drink club.” Tonight we are here to celebrate our victory over the robot spiders and the opening of story land Park tomorrow. We hope you all have a good time. And now, opening for the acoustic 10, Kitten on saxophone, Prowler on drums, kitty on electric guitar sympathizer, and yours truly on the Dragon flute. Now let the party get started!"

  And we begin to jam. We kept it up until the band joined us about 20 minutes later, then we played with them for awhile and surrendered the stage. Back at our table Owsee was waiting for us, and as we sat down said, "sounded good." We said thank you and I asked if he had heard fromGripper on whether or not he was coming.

  He said, “I don’t know, I have not seen Gripper all day.”

  I said, "how's the port doing? Seen any pesky metal eaten robots?" Owsee, "not yet, but I have heard reports that have been found here and there near the coast."

  I said, "here and there is a lot better than plagued by them, I think we got off lucky compared to what Plexon and Tronex must be going through." Owsee, “no small thanks to your brilliant battle strategies. And I heard there was a lightning storm, the likes this world has never seen, that took most of the incoming robots out. Could that have been due to something the Techno-sages left you?”

  I said, “if it was, it almost killed me, but let’s not talk about it.”

  So we ate BBQ, talked about pleasant things, and listened to the live music for hours. A number of the story tellers stopped by, to say hello and that they were looking forward to tomorrow. I told them I was glad we didn’t have to delay things on account of the war.

  As it got late we headed home to stop in on Goo dawa for a while, and it looked as if the whole town was there.

  Goo da wa said, “Gripper, Nursa and the triplets were here earlier, and everyone has been looking to thank you for doing such a great job.”

  I said, “all the more reason to keep a low profile, there are hundreds of others that deserve their thanks for working so hard for them.”

  Lots of people stopped by the table to thank us for doing such a great job during the war. I just keep saying, “thank you, but I had a great crew that deserves all the thanks.”

  The band got us to join them for a few tunes, then shortly afterwards we went home to get some sleep, while the rest of the town stayed up to party. I took the time to catch up on my writing before bed, as I looked into the night sky full of falling debris on fire, it was quite a sight. I hoped we had blown everything apart into small enough pieces that none of it came down without burning up. There was a lot of debris up there that could still cause much damage. I must've closed my eyes for a moment, because next thing I knew it was hours later. I got up, stiff all over, and went inside. Not wanting to wake Kitty, I laid down on the sofa and went back to sleep.

  Day 99

  I woke up early the next morning, and it was not quite light yet. So I took a shower and made my coffee before anyone got up. Then I even made the beaten eggs and milk for French toast, before Kitty took it from there, with sausages and fried potatoes as well. Owsee was on time for breakfast, as usual, and asked what I was up to today.

  I said, “other than opening the park, I’m not sure. Maybe get the rest of the sites for my hotel and clubs ready, and bring back the gold we dug out the other day. We may do some more mining, or perhaps even go fishing.”

  Owsee, "if you want to go fishing you should try some deep sea fishing, that's where the big ones are."

  I said, "back on Earth they got big in the sea as well, some bigger than most house, but there are not many of those left anymore."

  Owsee, "we don't have any that big on this planet, but I have heard of monsters as big as 1,000 pounds or
so."

  I said, "that's a bit more than I'm willing to fight with today, and I'm likely to spend most of the day at the park anyway."

  Owsee, "well you can count on me stopping by sometime today, to see the place up and running. I bet it becomes full of people early."

  Kitty, "I want to spend some time there as well, late afternoon would be good. Loquacious can close the shop for me."

  I said, "I’ll plan on picking you up in the afternoon then, the Twins can spend the day with me of course, I’m sure we will find plenty to do."

  Owsee, "oh by the way, the cargo master called me at the bar last night to say Plexon had sent a ship for crystals, and there are two more on their way. He said he was going to stagger the government shipments, so I could slip a few in each day."

  I said, "it's nice to have friends on the station. I only hope the Plexons sent me some more ammunition, I don't want to be caught short."

  Owsee, "well luckily you have the Trident now, she is a powerful force to be reckoned with.”

  I said, "true, I ship like that in the right hands could match our fleet!" Prowler, "with the hull we put on her your EMP projectiles will just bounce off." Kitten, "but we reconfigured her DNA sensors for Owsee, you and family members only, to start your engines."

  Kitty, "so I’m on the list? That will be the day when you catch me flying, I don't even like being a passenger."

  Kitten, "it’s just to start the engine's mother, someone else could fly it for you, like Gripper."

  I said, "it's always good to have a secret backup plan."

  Kitty, "well now that I can live with, though I doubt I'll ever be asked." After breakfast the children and I went to my new story land Park. Being a non school day, there were a lot of people in the parking lot working their way in, and the park was filling fast. All the storytellers, and other workers, had got there by sunup in anticipation of a crowd. I had my ship drop us off on the roof of my building. We tried to estimate how many people were down there, it looked like at least a thousand. That would make for standing room only around the storytellers. So we went down to my office, and I got on the parking lot public address and said, "due to the lack of seats in the storyteller area, for the next hour, all children 12 and under may enter free with a adult."

  There was a bit of a cheer from the crowd outside, then I got on the Park public address and said, "as a thank you for coming early, I would like to offer the first 500 customers a free soda, welcomed the story land Park."

  Moments later my manager, Ag, came in and said, "morning Sir, just wanted to make sure it was you in here giving things away."

  I said, "yes, I'm in a generous mood this morning,but don't try for a raise." He laughed and said, "looks like we have a fine start to an opening day sir." I said, "yes it does. Now let's try to keep people happy and the park clean." He said, yes sir, and went downstairs. The Twins and I then went to tour the park to see firsthand how things were going. The free sodas made room for the people that rather sit down to do so, just as I had in mind. There were not many people at the swimming area or in the woods yet. It seemed they were there mainly for the stories, even the Twins wanted to sit in on a few. I wanted to do some running around, so I gave them both a credit chip for food and soda, then said I would be back within a few hours.

  I went to the roof of the main building, got on my ship, and went to second moon to see if there were any robot spiders there. I knew the mines would not destroy all of them but the engineering twins U1 & U2 seem to be confident that whatever was left would not be a problem for them. As I flew across the surface I could see parts here and there, first just a few then many. It was not long before I saw the patrol robots, moving around, looking for something to blast. There was no doubt that this moon had defenses no one knew about. Whatever had landed here would soon be blasted to only parts, and give us no trouble. Secret base indeed, you don’t drop in on U1&U2 without an invitation.

  I then went to the station to see how things were. As I got close I could see two Plexon cargo ships waiting to be loaded, and four local ships waiting to take on water. After I landed I saw we got a shipment of ammunition, and the dock crew were reloading the fighters.

  I asked the cargo master how much we got in and he said, "enough to replace all we used between Plexon and Tronex, plus a few days more. All free of charge. Plexons way of saying thank you."

  I said, "well that was nice of them, any word on how Tronex is doing?" New-come Bee, "a lot of the robots burned up on the way down, but there are reports they are still smashing some here and there as we are."

  I said, "sounds like they had a bit of luck, no thanks to Plexon and their lack of doing anything ahead of time. But then, we all took what we could get and did the best with what we had."

  He said, "that Trident of yours was a lucky find."

  I said, "yes she made a difference, a lucky find indeed."

  We talked for a bit more then I left to go see how things were at my ice mine on lunar one.

  When I got to the moon I called fire control to make sure they recognize my ship, then I did a flyover of the work site. The freshwater ice field was the size of an ocean, and we were already over 100 feet down and three times that wide in our mining. But at the rate we were going there would still be water to sell for most of the rest of my life, and as I say, much longer if I'm not careful. I then stopped in at the station to walk around and see how things were going. I didn’t stay long, just a quick tour and a few hello’s then I went back down to the planet. I stopped in on the site where they were building my new hotel and club. Digger had the stone done on the club and the doors cut out, he would be at the next site now. The hotel was coming along. The steal was halfway done and the stone was up to the second floor. I don't know how they managed to work so fast, on Earth it would have taken months to get so far along. I talked to my contractor, Stony, and he said, “yes, the work is really coming along. We have already started on another site, with a third within a few days.

  I said, "that's a lot to watch over," and he said, "well, I have good people." I then went to a site that needed some dirt moved and dug the holes for the club and hotel basement, or should I say blasted it out by the power of my mind, then it was back to the park. I got a slice of pizza, just to see how it was, and a soda. The pizza was alright, there could've been more toppings, but for one credit a slice it was good. I walked around until I found the Twins listing to a storyteller. I listened to the rest of the story with them, before asking if they wanted to come with me to get some gold, or stay here. They said they could listen to stories anytime, but a chance to mine gold with their father will not come along every day.

  I said, "you got that right," and we went to the station to get a shuttle to use. We landed the ship not far from the Goldmine, on the only piece of level ground nearby. We brought a small metal cargo box to put the gold in and I use my telekinetic ability to move the box to the ship. Then we dug out some more and took it to the ship one handful at a time, until it was near noon. We went to the house for lunch, and I made sandwiches and a soup. It was just cheese, mushrooms and milk, but we all liked it. After lunch we took half of the gold to the bank of Owsee.

  I brought the container inside for the manager and he said, “we don’t get many gold deposits.”

  I said, “we did a little mining for Owsee and this is his share, try not to move it without some help.”

  He said, “most certainly, this stuff so heavy most people just use credit chips these days, but it does have its uses. I’ll tell Owsee of the deposit for him. By the way, may I not be the last one to thank you for doing such a wonderful job in protecting our planet.”

  I said, “thank you, I’m sure you won’t be, but the brave pilots and hard working crew of the space station deserve the praise. As well as all the people that donated the ships we needed, and the ports that helped get them off the ground. We really could not had done it without all their help.”

  Then the children and I went to the g
old exchanged by the central city port, and I traded the Nuggets for gold flakes to use in my club. While I was making the deal, the man from ear-wood sales gave me a call asking how soon I could take some wood, as he needed a place to put the wood he just cut. I told him I would send someone today or tomorrow. Then I called my contractor and told him not to do any work on the club, as I would need it for storage for a while. Then I called my flying freight company and told them to fly a few loads to that club. We then took the shuttle back to the station, and went down to the park again in my ship. We spent some time with storytellers, moving from one to the other, and come midafternoon I went to get kitty. I landed behind her shop, and when I went in I found there were no customers, and kitty was ready to go. So he told her helper to close at sunset and we left. My ship spared no time in getting us to the park, and we landed on the roof of the main building. After a little bit of looking over the side at the park, as I pointed things out, we went down to my office. Kitty liked the office, saying it had a great view, then took her on a tour of the park. We took our time as we went past the food & drink stands and storytellers. We walked by the swimming area and its beach, around the lake and through the woods. By the time we got back to the storytellers area again we were ready to sit down. Lucky to find two seats together, we listen to the storyteller for more than an hour. Then the children found us and we decided to head home. I told the manager to send the storyteller's home and close the park at sunset, then Kitty, the Twins and I went home. The sun was not yet behind the mountains, but it would not be long. The Twins wanted to go flying on the jet scooters for awhile, by themselves. Kitty said there has got to be a first time for everything, but I should keep a close eye on them. So I made sure they were wearing their safety harnesses, and I went up in my liven ship to play tag with them. She was not much bigger than most people's living rooms, but could maneuver like a hummingbird. This made for great fun as we darted here and there, and I kept a close eye on how well the Twins could fly. But before long it started to get dark and I called an end to the fun. When we got back down I learned Kitty had been watching us most of the time we were up there. Shesaid it looked as if the Twins were using a bit of care.