by Jim Laughter
Jake laughed. “Well, either way, it’s still a sight to see, especially from the air.”
“Wouldn’t know. I ain’t never been up in one of them crazy flying machines and I don’t ever intend to get in one.”
The farmer looked from the rig back to Delmar. “So you want to fix my shed for me, do you, boy?”
“Yes sir,” Delmar answered.
“Too late. Already fixed it myself,” the farmer said. “Didn’t figure the kids around here would own up to it.”
“Then maybe there’s something . . .” Delmar began, but the farmer cut him off.
“Erdinata, you say?” the farmer began, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “I heard that planet has some prime farmland on it. You ever been on a farm, boy?”
“Yes sir,” Delmar answered. “I was raised on a farm, and I worked on a neighbor’s farm while I went to school.”
“Doin’ what?” the farmer asked. “Sloppin’ hogs, feedin’ chickens?”
“Yes sir,” Delmar answered. “Among other things. I mended fences, fed the stock, cleaned the barn, plowed the . . .”
“Plowed?” the farmer interrupted. “You know how to drive a tractor, boy?”
“Yes sir,” Delmar answered, then noticed the twinkle in the old farmer’s eye. “But I’ve never been on anything like that rig of yours.”
“On the contrary. You’ve been on this very rig,” the farmer said. “I had to wipe your muddy boot prints off my fender from where you stood on it to warm your hands at my light bulb.”
Delmar looked back and forth between Jake and the farmer.
“How did you know that?” Delmar asked, embarrassed.
“I may be old, but I ain’t senile, boy,” the farmer answered. “Besides, I do the same thing from time to time myself.”
The farmer turned to Jake and motioned toward a large tree at the edge of the field.
“Reverend, you go on over and have a seat under that Julep tree and pour yourself a cold glass of iced-tea. Me and this boy has got us some work to do.”
Jake watched while the farmer put his arm around Delmar’s shoulder and led him toward the tractor.
“So tell me, Delmar,” he heard the farmer say, “what kind’a tractor does your daddy have?”
Jake thought he saw Delmar smile. He was happy.
∞∞∞
Time passed quickly for the boys after their short visit to Port Mulvey. Delmar found time to ponder his own life decisions. It had never occurred to him that what you choose to do can be bigger than yourself. He and Jake had spent time talking about destiny and the importance of knowing who you are and how your life must count for something; that each of us are part of a greater whole, not just individual beings taking up space in the universe. Their time together had given him a new direction and a sense that even an orphan boy from an obscure planet can make a galactic difference.
At least he had cleared his conscious about breaking into the farmer’s shed. And besides, he thought, the old farmer turned out to be alright. He’d even taught him to drive that crazy eight-wheeled tractor, and before long, he was plowing the field alone while the farmer and Jake sat under the Julep tree sipping iced tea. It had been a good day, Delmar remembered.
Now, Delmar had been in the counseling center for over an hour going over the necessary paperwork to transfer to another school. As Jake had predicted, the liaison officer had been most understanding and helpful in closing Delmar’s tenure at the computer institute and helping him look into more appropriate fields of endeavor. Still, Delmar kept thinking back to the leave spent in Port Mulvey as helping him get his personal compass set straight. He realized that he’d been looking at graduating from the institute as some sort of personal validation. It wasn’t easy seeing that he expected himself to fail. As a result, he was preventing himself from ever finding his niche in life and succeeding.
He paused in his thinking to look at the wall clock. Ten more minutes had already passed while he mulled over the trip. Turning back to the forms that he still needed to complete, Delmar applied himself to filling in all of the little blanks.
∞∞∞
Evening had fallen and the technicians had finally gone home. Ert found that he enjoyed the relative solitude free from the constant questions with which this team of technicians plied him. In short order, they learned the necessary servicing procedures and quickly picked up on basic operations. The unit found that some of their preconceived notions about computers were amusing so it patiently tried to teach them better methods.
At first, some of the creatures seemed very annoyed that a mere curiosity knew more than they did about the nature of artificial intelligence. By tapping into their lab computer, Ert was able to demonstrate the differences between their self-defeating methods and its own. Several of the experts caught on while others languished in their own ideas and primitive systems.
That brought up another point of contention. For some reason the creatures had difficulty with the idea of a computer having emotions. They had somehow gotten it ingrained into their minuscule sub-consciousness that machines were totally incapable of having emotions or feelings. Ert reflected how its original builders would have reacted to such a false notion.
One of the unit’s favorite creatures was the one called Professor Angle. The creature seemed to intuitively grasp the concepts Ert was trying to convey. It found working with this professor to be quite enjoyable. When Professor Angle approached it about repairing and upgrading the simple computers it had contacted earlier, Ert was more than happy to comply. The task was easy enough to accomplish, and the only difficulty came in retraining the attending creatures how to best utilize the improvements.
Another avenue open to Ert dealt with historical files. After the repairs to the library computer, it finished transferring all the information it had about Horicon. Then it had the pleasure of tapping all of the files dealing with the history of these bipedal creatures. The concept of personal space flight was foreign to the unit and it studied the phenomenon voraciously. It was interesting that the early explorations of these creatures took them to within two light-years of Horicon, even though the Horicon had already been extinct for countless generations, and the ruins discovered only a few years ago.
Yet, the unit was happy. It learned it really had nothing to fear from these creatures and their curious notions. Once again, the unit had purpose and it was pleased with the arrangement.
Chapter Nineteen
From: HasselFarm>gss.bv.er
To: Sshane>gss.mcti.mi
Subject: congratulations
Dear Stan,
We wanted to send our congratulations on your upcoming graduation from the institute! From what we’ve heard, both Delmar and the Senders say you’ve done well and should be proud of yourself! Robert and I both feel the service will be well served by your skills and that you are a credit to the Axia.
Delmar also told us about your application to work in the Observation Department. We both think that’s an excellent idea and hope your application is accepted. Robert agrees that your ability with computers will be put to excellent use there. Let us know if any input from us would be helpful.
Well, that’s about it from here. We know you’re busy getting ready to graduate and arrange transit to your new duty station. Say hello to the Senders for us. We understand they plan to attend your graduation ceremony.
Love, Robert and Agnes Hassel
P.S. Does Delmar have a girlfriend?
Stan chuckled as he finished the letter and placed it into his desk drawer. He glanced over his shoulder at Delmar who was rapidly pecking away on his student keyboard.
I guess Delmar has a girlfriend, thought Stan, if you can count a pen pal on the computer bulletin board. Delmar seemed to sense Stan’s gaze and turned around to face his friend.
“What does she have to say?” Stan asked. “I noticed you’re typing a rather long reply.”
“She wants to know all about Ert,” Delmar said.
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“And you’re telling her all about it, right?” Stan asked with a grin. “I thought you were tired of talking about your digital friend.”
“I am,” Delmar stammered, “but she needs to know for some sort of school paper she’s writing.”
Stan chuckled and walked over to his locker. His personal gear, already packed for shipping, waited at the foot of his bed. He had only left himself the basic travel kit any trooper maintained.
“So? Are you packed?” Delmar asked. He already knew the answer. The thought that they would soon part ways was not a comfortable one. They’d been together since basic and both had been glad when the institute allowed Delmar to remain on campus while waiting for his new school assignment.
“Yeah, I pretty much have everything boxed up for shipping,” Stan replied.
“Did you make your weight allowance?” Delmar asked. There’d been some concern on Stan’s part about being able to take all of his books.
“I managed to stay just under the limit,” Stan answered. “I’ll ship any extras to the Senders and they’ll forward it to me wherever I’m stationed.”
“That’s good,” replied his friend. “I was afraid you were going to foist the extra poundage off on me!”
“No,” Stan said with a mischievous grin, “I’m just going to leave you to worry about all of this extra furniture.”
“Already took care of that,” Delmar replied to the surprise of Stan. “Jake and Sherry are going to take it back with them to furnish a guest room.”
∞∞∞
“The report is coming in from the Reacher now, sir,” the trooper on the comm station reported.
The operations officer grunted and looked over. “Put it on speaker,” he ordered. A moment later, they were able to hear the scout ship.
“I’m coming up on the dark side of the planet,” Captain George Citti reported.
That was normal procedure. When a ship wanted to do a minimum exposure pass over a specific location on a planet, it would use the bulk and shadow of the planet for cover. Swinging around, it would be able to appear over the target and then accelerate without notice on a direct tangent away from the surface.
The noise of nuclear aftershock crackled through the speakers in the monitor section of the great mothership, followed by the distant voice of the scout captain.
“I’m aborting my approach, mothership,” Citti’s voice echoed faintly around the room.
“Say again,” responded the trooper operating the communications panel. “You’re breaking up, Reacher. Say again.”
“Breaking up?” Akir Asmed asked George. “We’ve got the new T31/K2 subspace transmitter in this ship. We should be able to transmit a clear signal any distance.”
“Nuclear interference,” George answered. “The very fabric of space is saturated with nuclear interference.”
“Report, Reacher,” a voice sounded over George’s headset. “Do you copy?”
“We copy, sir,” George answered. “Stand by.”
George throttled the Reacher back and brought her to a hover in space. The scene unfolding before them was unlike anything either he or Akir had ever seen.
“Reacher?” the voice called again. “Reacher, report.”
George keyed his microphone and cast a sidelong glance at Akir who sat silently stunned in the comm chair of the Reacher.
“It’s a complete loss,” George reported.
“Say again, Reacher,” the voice ordered. “You’re breaking up.”
“Boost the gain just a touch, Akir,” George requested.
“Yes, sir,” Akir answered solemnly. He adjusted a setting on the comm panel and nodded at George. “Try it now, Captain.”
George keyed his mic again. “Can you hear me now?” George asked.
“Just barely, Reacher, but we hear you,” the voice answered. “Your report, please.”
“It’s a total loss, mother,” George responded. “The Red-tail device apparently triggered the detonation of multiple nuclear weapons, all in one place at first, then it appears to have created a chain reaction around the globe. The implosive nature of the Red-tail device is tearing the very fabric of space around the planet, and the force of the exploding nuclear weapons has caused the planet to shift on its vertical axis.”
The crew of the mothership waited in stunned silence, absorbed in the destructive report pouring from their monitor speakers. They’d all witnessed the birth of new planets and the forming of star systems. They’d marveled at the magic of creation. But to witness the death of a planet and of billions of people all at once was sobering, even to the seasoned combat troopers stationed aboard the ship.
The operations officer keyed his mic and asked in a solemn voice, “What is your position, Reacher?”
“We’re in stationary orbit around the planet approximately ten thousand miles above the surface, directly over the target area, sir,” George answered. “Visual recorder on. We can’t get any closer.”
“Can’t get any closer?” the operations officer asked. “Why not?”
“The heat, sir,” George answered. “Even at this distance the heat is incredible. The entire planet is an inferno of nuclear heat. I’ll be surprised if the planet doesn’t explode from the intense heat that must be building up at the core. We’re witnessing destruction on a planetary scale, possibly even of the solar system if the force of the space rift shifts the orbits of the other planets.”
“Are there any signs of survivors?” the officer asked, knowing full well there would not be.
“Survivors, sir?” George responded. “No survivors, sir. Any survivors of the initial blasts won’t make it long anyway, sir. They’ll either die of radiation poisoning or freeze to death in nuclear winter. Pockets of tribal survivors may crop up in a few of the primitive jungle and forest regions of the planet, sir, but that’s about it.”
While George and Akir watched from relative safety aboard the Reacher, an entire section of land mass of several hundred of miles detached from the western coast of one of the large continents on the planet and slid into the ocean. Entire cities and mountain ranges disappeared under trillions of tons water. The continent itself split in two, sending disastrous amounts of volcanic ash and debris up from fissures in the planet’s mantel. Millions of people were dying right before George and Akir’s eyes and they were helpless to save them.
“I’m turning on the exit tangent now,” George said. “There’s nothing we can do. Reacher out.”
The operations officer looked at his fellow troopers. “Stay focused on your jobs,” he ordered. “And if any of you pray, remember to pray for the billions of people, human beings like yourselves that just lost their lives due to political stupidity and ineptitude. May the Unseen One have mercy on their souls.”
He turned toward the hatch. “Let me know when the scout returns,” he ordered. “I’ll be in my office filling out the paperwork.”
∞∞∞
Delmar and Stan showed up early at the institute’s auditorium for the graduation ceremony. Both wore their dress black uniforms, but Stan had his covered by the traditional graduation gown.
“You look a little nervous,” Delmar remarked to his friend. “You’ve faced worse than this, so why worry?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever gone through a graduation ceremony,” Stan answered nervously.
“Not true,” Delmar said. “You graduated from school.”
“Correspondence, just like you,” Stan answered.
“But what about when we graduated from basic?” Delmar asked. “We had the empress herself there.”
“That was easy. All I had to do was march and stand at attention.”
“Well, I have confidence you’ll make it,” Delmar said and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “And if not, it will be fun watching you faint!” Delmar quipped.
“Thanks a bundle, buddy,” Stan said with a smile. “I’ll be sure to fall on you.”
“You’ll have to fall up,” Delm
ar said, pointing to the seats in the upstairs gallery.
“Delmar?” asked Stan suddenly when his friend turned to go. Delmar stopped and turned back around.
“What is it?” Delmar asked, seeing his friend’s concern.
“It’s just that I thought we’d be going through this together,” Stan stammered. “I’m still not enthused about the idea of us going our separate ways.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Delmar replied. He gripped Stan’s shoulder. “It’s not like we won’t still be friends.”
“Oh, I know that,” Stan said. “But I looked forward to serving together after school. Now we won’t.”
“If you think about it, the chances of them needing two computer experts together were pretty slim anyway,” Delmar remarked. “With my being in a different field, we might even stand a better chance of crossing paths.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Stan said sheepishly. “Well anyway, it’s been a lot of fun working together, and I’m going to miss it.”
“Don’t worry,” Delmar said, his own eyes starting to mist. “You can’t get rid of me this easy!”
A speaker squawked in the background calling the graduates to assemble backstage.
“Sounds like I better go,” Stan said, glancing in the direction the other graduates were headed.
“Yeah, you better,” Delmar said as he turned toward the door leading out to the seating area. “The Senders and I will see you at the reception. Now go break a leg!”
∞∞∞
The graduates marched down the aisle of the packed auditorium onto a wide stage. Delmar and the Senders had a good vantage point from which to watch the procession. To Delmar’s eye, Stan looked a little stiff when he marched past. The civilians are doing better! he thought as he watched his fellow trooper’s awkwardness. Everyone endured the traditional address by various dignitaries. President Ebilizer brought the house down with a heart-felt speech.
“We are gathered here to graduate these young people,” he said with little formality, “not to listen to an old man blather. I like long speeches even less now that I’m on this side of the podium, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me. So let’s get on with honoring these graduates. Thank you very much.” The room erupted in wild applause.