Tree of Liberty (Book 3 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  That surprised Chen. His secretary would not interrupt this moment unless there was need.

  “Send the visitor in at once,” he said. He returned to his desk and resumed his seat. This should be quite interesting.

  Another rap at the door a few moments later preceded the entrance of the guard and a short man with blond hair. An American by all appearances.

  The man waited until the guard retreated and closed the door before he bowed deeply. “Ambassador Chen, my name is Arthur Hyde.”

  The man then uttered a long code phrase that only an operative of the Dragon would know.

  That intrigued Chen. He’d thought he knew every operative inside America. Obviously not.

  Chen gestured toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Please sit, Mister Hyde. I’m told your news is quite urgent. Perhaps you’d care for a drink to ease your story.”

  The man smiled. “I wouldn’t turn down some whiskey, but I believe it can wait until I’m done, sir.”

  “Proceed then.”

  “As you probably surmised, I’m embedded inside the United States government. Something has come to light that is important enough to warrant I reveal my existence to you.

  “I work for the CIA at a high level. There have been meetings taking place between my superiors and others in senior leadership that I believed revolved around what was taking place with Clayton Rogers and his spaceship on Mars. That much turned out to be true, but there was more.

  “The United States government is of course aware of the Asharim and their technology now. The new factor is that Secretary of State Queen was kidnapped briefly by an organization familiar with Asharim technology operating inside the United States. An organization that is not connected with the Dragon.”

  Chen slowly straightened in his chair. “Are you sure of that?”

  The man nodded. “I’ve now confirmed it independently with two sources that were present at the meeting. Queen briefed the president and others of the existence of this group.

  “A former FBI agent named Brenda Cabot kidnapped Secretary Queen and took him through a gate to a location where they met with Harry Rogers and Jessica Cook. I presume that location was Mars. Possibly an old resistance base there.”

  That was quite the revelation. Someone here on Earth had access to a gate. The Holy Grail of Asharim technology. How could the Dragon not have known about them?

  “I see,” Chen said coolly. “This is indeed explosive information. Have you determined anything else about her group?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m afraid not, sir. It’s entirely possible that more information has been shared, but has not yet made its way to my ears.”

  “I assume that you have instructions for me,” Chen said.

  “That’s correct. I’m to continue assisting you in every way possible. I have many assets inside the various arms of the US government. Those are now at your disposal.

  “Our superiors are now willing to risk anything to gain access to that gate. I feel confident that a courier with instructions to that effect is already in route.”

  That wouldn’t surprise Chen at all. For possession of a gate, the Dragon would set China against America in a heartbeat. Millions of dead was a small price to pay for the universe.

  With a smile, Chen rose to his feet. “This is indeed momentous news. Allow me to pour you one of the finest whiskeys in my bar. We shall toast to the success of the Dragon.”

  * * * * *

  It took quite a bit of persuading to convince Commander Krueger to come out and meet their new friends. He was rightly concerned there would be some type of betrayal.

  Clayton had to admit there was a risk. None of them truly knew the people of this world. Despite what he believed, the sacrificial altar on the top of the hill might belong to the very people they were going to dine with tonight.

  It was with that in mind that Krueger decided Gunnery Sergeant Danvers and his best people would take up positions watching the camp. If there were any shenanigans, the frighteningly competent man would settle it.

  Mick Bird and Penny Cash—his civilian employees trapped on this unplanned adventure—would accompany Clayton. This was an all hands on deck sort of event.

  Those not directly involved in watching over them were going to have to socialize and learn about their new hosts. Every additional pair of ears might hear a critical piece of information.

  Krueger took in the camp as they walked closer. “Perhaps it’s just me, but it sure looks as if they’re a little lax with their security. We have people in the woods watching them. They should have sentries out to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Clayton could see the logic in that. He wasn’t sure why they didn’t. Perhaps he should ask.

  In a very similar fashion to when he’d approached the camp the first time, soldiers came out to meet them. Thankfully, they didn’t feel the need to point their weapons at him or his companions. They merely formed up around the group and escorted it into camp.

  He did note that the soldiers were eyeing the modern weapons carried by his friends. They were radically different from the long rifles the Volunteers carried. They might not even understand that they were multi-shot, much less fully automatic.

  That would be a truly unpleasant surprise for them if things went badly.

  That set him to wondering why the technology for weapons had not improved here over the last several hundred years. Had their population been so low that they had no time? Or was this some kind of ritualized behavior?

  An anthropologist would have a field day here, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He made a mental note to see about sending one if he ever got home.

  Once again, Adorno and her military companions waited for them outside the large tent. Unlike last time, the sides were raised and the contents had been rearranged. It seemed to be set up for a party gathering now.

  Clayton bowed toward the woman as they approached. “Susanna Adorno, allow me to introduce the military leader of our expedition, Commander Karl Krueger. He’s a Navy special operations officer.”

  Krueger mimicked Clayton’s bow. “Ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  The woman eyed his camouflage clothing and strange gear. “Commander. I confess that I thought Mister Rogers dressed strangely, but your adornment is even more unusual. I barely know where to begin asking questions about it.”

  The officer smiled. “Wherever you like, of course.”

  Clayton cleared his throat and introduced Mick and Penny, and then allowed Krueger to name his people. Adorno did the same for her senior officers.

  With the introductions out of the way, she gestured for them to proceed under the tent. “Meal preparation is always a challenge in the field, but we’ve done what we can to provide some palatable food. I do hope it is to your taste.”

  “I’m certain it will be fine,” Clayton said. “If I might ask, Commander Krueger was somewhat concerned that you didn’t have sentries posted along our route of approach. Aren’t you concerned that the Asharim will come upon you unawares?”

  She smiled. “We do have sentries out, but not so close to camp. They are set up some distance away along all the avenues of approach that the Asharim might use. If they detect enemy forces in any number, they’ll send word back here quickly. We are in no danger.”

  Krueger didn’t seem convinced. “With all due respect, ma’am, it’s the enemy’s job to do inconvenient things at the worst possible time for you. If they know how you have your sentries set up, they might be able to slip around and surprise you.”

  “My military commanders disagree. I suppose the possibility exists, but we would surely hear the fighting if they tried to overrun any of our lookout posts. There is no method they can use to slip past so many observers with any force at all.

  “I grant you the possibility that they may scout our position, but they won’t pose any danger to it. Their strength lies in their defenses in the city. They know that. They’ll
wait there for us.”

  “The perimeter is my responsibility,” Major Logan said. “I take that duty quite seriously. You may trust that we are in no danger tonight.

  “If I might ask, what manner of weapon is this? As a rifle, it seems quite short. Its accuracy must be terrible at anything more than a few dozen yards.”

  Krueger’s smile widened. “Appearances can be deceptive, Major. I can hit a man-sized target at quite a distance with this weapon. Perhaps, if circumstances permit, I might demonstrate it to you tomorrow.”

  “That would be very interesting,” the officer agreed. “I see a particular pattern in your clothing would make it difficult to see you in the foliage. That’s quite clever.”

  “I wish I could take credit for it, but some bureaucrat in Washington probably figured it out.”

  The man frowned. “Washington? Did you perhaps mean some bureaucrat with General Washington? I would have thought him long dead.”

  Clayton allowed himself a smile. It seemed he and his people weren’t the only ones that had some adjustment to do.

  “That’s a very long story,” he told the officer. “One that I’m convinced we can expand on at length. However, the food will be getting cold. Perhaps we should sample it before we settle in for a long night of conversation and getting to know one another.”

  Adorno nodded. “Quite right. Please, step this way. Our beer is perhaps not the best, but it is palatable.”

  Late-night parties weren’t exactly Clayton’s thing, but he’d spent more than enough time at such events. Tonight was important. They had to learn as much as possible about the world they were trapped on.

  He’d learned you never got a second chance to make a first impression. Tonight, he would make these people his friends.

  Clayton hoped Commander Krueger was wrong about the danger. He had no desire to fight anyone, much less at night. With any luck, his fears would prove unfounded.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kathleen stepped out into the wide bay and stared around in amazement. The damn place had easily four or five times as many vessels as she’d seen inside the base in France.

  The designs were different, but she wasn’t sure what that meant. Honestly, she wasn’t sure it really mattered. Alien ships were alien ships.

  Nathan stepped up beside her. “It looks as if you score another point, Mother. We do indeed have air to breathe.”

  She shot him a look of annoyance. Even though his words hadn’t been offensive, his tone was.

  “Your attitude is wearing on me. I suggest you try to be less of an ass.”

  He took two steps away and turned back to consider her. “You’ve known who I am my entire life. Hell, you’ve had a big part in making me the person I am. If there’s any considering to be done, I suggest you consider how our circumstances changed.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Nathan gestured around them. “Does this look like your corporate headquarters? Oh, that’s right! You don’t have one of those anymore. Not only that, you don’t have any people, either. The government took everything. The only things we have are on our backs.”

  He drew his pistol and pointed it at her head. “I have nothing to lose by shooting you and you’d best begin remembering you’re not the boss of me.”

  The sight of the deadly weapon pointed at her did indeed frighten her, but she wasn’t going to show fear to the likes of him. Once people knew you were afraid, they’d come back again and again to take what they wanted.

  She reached out, grabbed the barrel of his pistol between her finger and thumb, and pulled it to her forehead. “Pull the trigger and then figure out how you’ll get off this stupid station. Can you fly the shuttle? No? Do you know the gate code for Earth? No? That’s unfortunate.”

  Kathleen pushed the pistol away in a safe direction and planted her knee in his crotch.

  That was a fairly risky maneuver. There was a chance he’d shoot her for it. Still, it was a chance she had to take. Her dominance must be absolute.

  The blow doubled her son over. Thankfully, he didn’t shoot her. Rather than provoke him further, she strode away without looking back.

  Inside, she was trembling. She’d never been in as weak a position as she was right now. Nathan was correct. Her only possessions, her only advantages, were what she carried in her mind.

  She needed to find a way to turn this around. If she could find a way to get these fighters back home, she was certain she could use them. Perhaps reducing Washington DC to rubble would convince Queen to surrender.

  An airlock similar to the one they’d found on the ship, only much larger, stood in front of her. It opened at her touch. In fact, both doors did. A wide corridor sat beyond it.

  She frowned and looked at the deck. Everything was so clean. Shouldn’t an ancient facility like this be coated in dust? Perhaps there were machines that kept everything in working order.

  Right now, her only concern was determining who controlled this facility. If it were occupied at all. It seemed as though anyone here would know the shuttle had arrived. Hell, it should know the ship was sitting out there in space near it.

  A glance over her shoulder showed her son hobbling along behind her, his pistol once again in its holster. Good. He’d learned a lesson.

  Too bad it wouldn’t last. The idiot would continue challenging her unless she acquired enough power to keep him in his place. At this moment, he had no choice other than to follow her orders.

  That changed the moment they had a way back to Earth.

  He’d always been a problem for her, but he’d had his uses. Now she thought that time was coming to an end. To keep things tidy, she needed to acquire muscle of her own and then eliminate him.

  As she’d told him just a few weeks ago, she didn’t need to have him to create grandchildren. She could do that in a lab. With the right amount of money, she could hire a suitable woman to bear her grandchildren.

  Yes, that was sounding better every day.

  The wide corridor led deeper toward the center of the station. It seemed sensible to place critical facilities inside the deepest part of the station.

  She wasn’t sure what those looked like, but until she explored the area she couldn’t be sure. The center of the station would be an excellent place to start.

  What she found when she got there confounded her. The center of the station appeared to be an atrium. The wide-open space was perhaps one hundred meters across and a dozen levels tall. Based on her relative position, she seemed to be in about the middle.

  Running from the top of the chamber down to the bottom was a thick cable. She couldn’t tell what it was made of, but it didn’t seem to be metal.

  Perched on the cable was a huge cylinder that filled the atrium completely. It rested at the very top. The only reason she could tell it wasn’t the roof was the gap that went around the edge. It was deep enough for her to see that the cylinder was a separate object.

  She considered the strange setup for a long moment but wasn’t able to determine what it could be. Perhaps a massive elevator for moving things from one level to the other?

  Kathleen watched her son walk around the circumference of the central area. Only when she was sure he was far enough away did she step near the railing. It would be just like Nathan to try to throw her over the edge and damn the consequences.

  The floor of the atrium seemed to be made of clear material. She could see it was longitudinally split, almost as if it were a massive hatch that closed around the cable.

  Considering that she could see the cable continuing down toward the planet beyond the edge of the station, that didn’t seem to be a stretch.

  This tickled the edge of her memory. She’d read something about this kind of technology before. Was this a space elevator? A way of transporting a large amount of goods from the planet to orbit cheaply?

  If it was, she wondered why the aliens used it. They obviously had spaceships. They even had small craft capabl
e of entering an atmosphere. Why build something so radically different?

  Kathleen shook her head. She wasn’t going to find her answers standing here wondering.

  It took her a moment to locate the stairs about a quarter turn to her left from the atrium. “I’m going to see what that is,” she told her son. “Are you going to continue being difficult?”

  He gave her an angry stare. “No. You’ve won again. For now.”

  That was so like him. He couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. She wasn’t going to miss that at all.

  Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and headed for the stairs. If that really was an elevator, she might see if it could take them down. The station was obviously unoccupied. Any answers would probably come from the planet.

  * * * * *

  It took several hours before Molly Goodwin was ready to accompany Harry up to the top of the mesa. She was leading a rescue effort, after all.

  He couldn’t very well tell her he knew where his father had gone. Not yet.

  When she finally had everyone performing their tasks, she set her assistant to keep an eye on things and accompanied him to the path leading up to the top of the mesa.

  She stared up the path at this huge rock fall. “What a mess. If there wasn’t already a rope there, I wouldn’t believe it was possible for anyone to get past that.”

  He smiled at her. “It all depends on the level of training. I went up last night.”

  Molly gaped at him. “Are you serious? It was as black as a pit last night. How could you possibly have climbed over that?”

  “I won’t say it was easy. Have you ever done any rock climbing before?”

  “A little.”

  “Then this is going to be a piece of cake. Basically, we’ll climb directly up the face until we get to the top of that big boulder. It’s a lot easier on the other side.”

  She didn’t seem convinced, but she was ready to give it a try. Moving carefully and slowly, he assisted her on the climb until they stood on top of the mesa.