“OK, the plan is once we all get back to Earth you are to continue your planned honeymoon. You will be under surveillance at all times so don’t go organising anything silly, Bruce,” Wisneski admonished him, half seriously. Of everyone involved he had witnessed first-hand the firepower Myfair had at his disposal – which Wisneski assumed Bruce also possessed – and the somewhat contradictory invulnerability of the spaceship. Contradictory because it appeared to be pretty well immune to anything, from a weapons point of view, they could throw at it. However, they only knew about the spaceship in the first place because it had clipped the top of the highest point in the Rockies and somehow damaged itself, and they only got to see it because it was looking for a place to land and make repairs. For reasons best known to the ship or Myfair, it had landed on a military airbase, not some secluded secure site where it could have completed the repairs in relative peace and quiet. Something about the whole situation raised alarm bells in the back of Wisneski’s mind.
Wisneski had wondered whether the incident had been engineered as a survival exercise for Myfair, similar to the ones the US air force pilots completed as part of their advanced training. Though for the life of him he couldn’t work out why. Whatever the case, he was not about to underestimate the ability of the ship and its controlling AI to manage events and protect the likes of Bruce from anything the US Government tried to throw at him.
Bruce wondered if the message Wisneski had just delivered sounded as corny to Wisneski as it sounded to him. Bruce struggled to get a feel, from looking at him, what he actually thought about the instructions he was giving, let alone whether he believed Bruce would carry them out. He had always seemed like a pragmatic sort of guy.
“What’s that supposed to mean, mate?”
“Don’t try and make any contact with the media, don’t try to fly away somewhere, don’t do anything to draw any attention to yourself. If and when you get back to New Zealand it would also be a good idea to stay under the radar. No blabbing to the local authorities.”
“Ha! Do you really think I’m the sort of guy who’s going to go to the media and spill my guts? You’ve got to be fucken joking,” he replied with a sense of growing anger. Who did these people think he was, some kind of idiot?
Cop raised a wary eyelid, and Punch got to his feet nervously and moved out of range. They recognised the dangerous, unpredictable tone in Bruce’s voice, if nobody else did.
“We … er, I’ll be involved and I’ll make sure the surveillance is kept low profile so you can enjoy yourself. Think of us as security – we are there for your own protection,” Wisneski added lamely.
“Just who do you think you are, offering me protection? Whose stupid idea was that?” Bruce asked belligerently, raising his voice loud enough to alarm all the other passengers and the dogs who jumped to their feet and warily prepared themselves for an outburst of anger.
“Just who do you think I need protection from?” Bruce repeated. “You guys make me laugh sometimes,” he added, without elaborating further.
Punch approached him furiously wagging his tail and then tried to place his paws on Bruce’s chest so he could lick his face and hopefully make him feel better. Even if the humans in the room did not have his measure, the dogs did, and they were relieved the boss was not really angry. He was just being playful and making sure everyone knew who was in charge.
Bruce batted the big powerful dog away and gave him an affectionate whack on the head for good measure, which satisfied the dog. Punch dropped to the ground and stared up at Bruce with a look of utter adoration on his face.
“OK, then what?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure at the moment. The general and Dr Roach will fly back to Washington for talks with the President, er, Vice President Wilmot,” Wisneski corrected himself, “and the Leader of the House and a few others in order to decide how to proceed in this matter.”
In the circumstances Bruce found the concept these men and women who were so used to wielding enormous power for the benefit of their nation, and their complete confidence in what they were doing, interesting. It had clearly yet to dawn on them that while they sought to command the situation they were far from being in any sort of control of it at all.
They seemed to have a collective natural assumption, a sense of entitlement and exceptionalism, that justified the means to drive the outcome they desired, whether it was the right thing to do or not. As Bruce was quickly coming to realise, the interpretation of what was the right thing to do was dependent on a number of variables, many of which were based more on emotion than fact.
The key components of this scenario were being run by an AI who Bruce wanted to believe had his best interests at heart. Well, for as long as he was useful, that is, which probably went for his position with the Americans as well. However, he was still not so sure the MPU was completely in control of its own actions or had the best interests of mankind uppermost on its list of priorities.
“OK, what about Myfair and Leaf?” Bruce asked. Despite himself he felt a sense of responsibility towards them. It was not long ago he was the stranger in a strange land and powerless to control his destiny, or so he thought. He felt it was not the right thing to do to leave them to the same fate.
By the look on Wisneski’s face Bruce realised the two of them had now been largely ignored as being immaterial to the process.
Myfair might have lost access to the command functions of the patrol ship, but he did have access to some key functionality once he was aboard. He also appeared to carry around his own personal arsenal which, as far as Bruce was aware, was still fully functional. For all his current passivity and apparent depression, Myfair was potentially a pretty dangerous character to annoy. Wisneski had indicated it was probably not a good idea to have him roaming around the place without some form of supervision, based on his previous experience. Myfair was not quick to anger but he could find himself in a position where he felt threatened, and his response might not be relative to the situation and escalate rather quickly. Myfair seemed to have the same policy as an American policeman when faced with a challenging situation. Shoot first and ask questions later. Bruce was not sure what Leaf was capable of and he wasn’t keen on finding out. He assumed she had a similar arsenal at her disposal if she chose to use it.
“I think you should take them in hand and show them some of the sights,” Bruce suggested a little maliciously.
“OK, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll see what I can do.”
Thirteen
Rangi Tauroa climbed stiffly out of his ute and slapped his hand on the roof in an attempt to quieten down his dogs who seemed extraordinarily noisy today. He hoped Bruce’s bloody mongrel mutts had finally turned up from wherever they had scarpered off too as well. There would be hell to pay if Bruce came back and they had run off.
The dogs had disappeared without trace a few days ago. Some smart-arse must let them out of their kennels and shut the doors behind them – they were still locked when he had gone over to feed all the Harwood dogs and give them a quick run. A few strangers had been lurking in the district recently who he thought might be responsible. He had called the cops but they did not seem particularly interested in his report. Someone’s dogs being let out was pretty low on their list of priorities.
Typical, he thought. They had plenty of time for him when he did not want anything of them, but as soon as he did his neighbourly duty, reporting strange comings and goings, they didn’t want to know.
“You silly old coot, how do you think that could happen?”
“What?” Rangi asked, as he stomped over the brow of the slight rise separating the dog kennels from the main house. He looked over his shoulder suspiciously; the voice sounded for all the world like Bruce who was supposed to be half a world away.
He stood in front of the building and there they were. How they had got back into their kennels was beyond him. These bloody dogs gave him the fucken creeps. Especially the old heading dog who looked at him lik
e he could see directly into his mind.
“Not that there is much going on in there to look at.”
That was it as far as Rangi was concerned. There was no way he was going to take a chance and let them out of their kennels today. He threw them a handful of dog biscuits each and filled up their water bowls.
‘Thanks, you old git,” Cop said.
Rangi could not get away from the Harwood farm fast enough. In future he would send his daughter down the road to feed the dogs until Cyril got home. He was too spooked by Bruce’s dogs to deal with them any longer. He was not sure how he would explain this to his daughter but he’d come up with something. If he told her what was really in his mind, she would insist he visit his doctor and get some medication.
Pity, part of him thought as he drove away, his mind off on another tangent, that Bruce has gone off and got himself married to some foreign woman. Bruce and his daughter would have made a good pair, despite old Mavis Harwood’s disapproval of their relationship as teenagers before they went their separate ways to get an education. Since then they had only touched base briefly at holidays. Rangi was pretty sure Bruce had never understood how much his daughter had idolised him when they were growing up. Well, too late now, he thought sadly.
It would have been a good thing to see their land kept in their respective families – keep it close. Rangi was a little concerned about the future of his farm when he passed on – neither of his sons was interested in the land, nor were their kids. They were all making good lives for themselves in the big smoke.
Ngaio had never really indicated an interest in the farm either. However, if she had got together with Bruce, the story might have been different. The Harwoods had been on this land since the early days of European settlement, and though his own whakapapa was much older and his roots deeper in the land, the two families had lived side by side for over a hundred and fifty years.
Fourteen
Once the spaceship had landed and they all disembarked, a fleet of SUVs was summoned for the return trip to the office building they had left from earlier.
Bruce sat in the front of one SUV with Wisneski, who had taken over the driving duties, while Myfair and Leaf sat silently in the rear, still showing little emotion or concern for their situation. They might or might not have been particularly happy about their current circumstances. Bruce was unsure why the MPU had stripped Myfair of control of the space patrol ship and it had not seen fit to share the reason with him. But they did not appear all that worried either, as though they were supremely confident of their place in the way of things. Well Bruce was pretty sure about Leaf, though not so sure about Myfair’s state of mind.
Tellingly Sue had joined the others in a second vehicle.
“Gawd knows what little schemes and fantasises they’re putting together,” Bruce muttered to himself.
Do you want to listen in? the MPU asked.
Bruce wasn’t sure he really wanted to find out what they were all talking about. The offer made him feel a little creepy, like a pervert or deviant stalker. Then the inquisitive side of his nature got the better of him. “Why not?” he decided.
If they were planning anything devious that included him then his eavesdropping would be justified. If not, then Bruce would find a way to justify himself to his conscience one way or another. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be embarrassed by any negative comments from the group in the other vehicle.
“… Can you? OK, are you certain you can provide the same level of access to the space patrol ship your husband has?” The general was clearly asking Sue to confirm their recent discussion on the patrol ship. The MPU had filled him in on this discussion without the verbatim details.
“For sure,” Sue lied. “I am absolutely confident I have the same capability. Mr Bruce-bloody-Harwood isn’t the sole fount of knowledge about Skid. I watched how he accessed the controls on the way back from Skid, and we had the same high-level set of instructions provided to us. He’s not as clever as he thinks he is, you know!” she added dismissively.
Ouch. Ouch! thought Bruce. Serves me right.
“Besides, I have him under my thumb. Bruce will do anything I want. Anyhow, if all else fails we still have Myfair and Leaf to provide information as required. I assume you have the technology to squeeze information out of them using advanced interrogation techniques.”
Bruce was a little aghast at the mean streak Sue was displaying. He would never have imagined it previously. But then, he decided, for Sue the stakes were now pretty high, and she was at the big table trying to make an impression.
“Believe me, I have him under my thumb. He’ll do anything I want!” Sue repeated.
“Well that solves that problem then,” General Smith replied, a hint of relief evident in his voice. “I’ll fly to Washington and update Wilmot and the Chiefs and explain our plan to them.”
“Are you quite confident this approach will work?” Dr Roach interjected. “You both seem to be making some pretty serious assumptions here that Bruce Harwood is going to roll over and do whatever we want and basically give us unrestricted access to the patrol ship. We don’t even know if he has any control over it really. Besides, I don’t think the process will be that easy, myself, and we might be deluding ourselves if we think it’s going to be a simple matter. We don’t even know how he communicates with the controlling AI of the ship. And as for Myfair, he no longer appears to have access to the ship’s codes to do anything useful.”
“Minor details,” the general said dismissively, trying to brush the old doctor’s concerns aside as though the matter was truly settled and access to the mind-boggling technology was a done deal. “Besides, we have a secret weapon in your colleague Shelly if all else fails.”
If Sue felt threatened by this statement she didn’t seem concerned that the general was openly discussing the use of Shelly Shaw as part of a sex-based ploy to beguile Bruce. Just what Shelly thought about this wasn’t evident as she wasn’t saying anything.
“Look, all we need to do, is get me and Myfair on the ship somehow and I’ll take it from there,” Sue said. “I’m sure if Myfair, and or Leaf, were threatened in any way, the ship would come to the rescue and we can find a way aboard.”
Bruce found it hard to believe what he was hearing and was appalled by the implication that the size of the prize meant the end justified the means. That, if nothing else, hardened his heart against the Americans and any thoughts of cooperating with them.
Bloody hell, he thought, how am I going to keep a straight face on the rest of the honeymoon? Here he was wondering how to break the news to Sue their relationship was all over, and there she was tacitly agreeing to the use of Shelly Shaw as some kind of sexual weapon against him. Clearly she was thinking along the same lines about their marriage as he was, or was at least behaving that way. Bruce wondered what her old man would make of it.
He thought maybe he should call her bluff right there and then, and simply head home by any means he could find – forgetting for a moment he had a spaceship at his disposal.
He found it equally appalling that the general was buying into all this. He wondered whether General Smith and Sue really believed they could get control of the ship or were just hoping the more times they said it would happen, the more likely it would, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They were deluding themselves if they thought they could pull it all off. But the prize was so rich they could also bring a whole lot of other people along on this delusional journey before they were forced to confront the cold, hard truth that the outcome they were aiming for was beyond their capability and had never been achievable in the first place.
Bruce was at the point of dumping Sue on the spot. However, he really wanted to go to the Rugby Sevens in Las Vegas now they were so close and he did not want to go by himself. He could take Myfair or Leaf, he supposed, but it wouldn’t be the same – although they might enjoy the rugby.
Maybe the general had read Bruce’s mind as he said; “We have to do everything i
n our power to control this technology, and the end justifies the means. I’m convinced the plans we have put in place will drive the required outcomes. I will flesh out the detail over the next few days to ensure the success of our enterprise.”
Bruce thought it sounded like the old boy was doing a pretty good job of trying to convince himself they could pull this thing off and get control of the ship – but that was the last thing Bruce was going to let happen if he had any say in the matter.
“Pity we haven’t got video as well,” Bruce muttered under his breath. “I’d love to see if these guys are actually planning this with a straight face.” He could not quite believe they were arrogant enough to assume they had the right to simply take what was not theirs merely because they thought they could.
The next thing Bruce knew some kind of live CCTV feed was pouring into his brain. If he was not all hot and bothered by what he had been hearing to date, the sight of the old general patting Sue affectionately on the knee and periodically squeezing her thigh confirmed in his mind he was dealing with a bunch of immoral nutters who weren’t to be trusted.
“… and we must manage to achieve this before the any word leaks out, before anyone else discovers a rocket-propelled asteroid heading this way,” the general droned on.
“We have people who can handle this for us, for any stories that leak into the media that we think are counterproductive to our cause. There are mechanisms for swamping any story that leaks out until it is completely overwhelmed by some other viral message or messages. But we need control of the ship and the asteroid otherwise we will eventually be found out.”
Bruce cringed as they all grinned smugly at each other, the whole lot of them had clearly convinced themselves they had the situation under control.
“This is our route to the stars, much sooner than we could have hoped for; this is our chance to own the future,” the general pontificated. “I can feel it in my water; we’re almost there.”
The Lifeboat Page 15
