Starship X-15

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Starship X-15 Page 19

by Alan VanMeter


  The ‘Glow-plant’ is found again at our old home site of years ago, and Rick’s Landing is made into the first National Park on the planet. The berries are also found in other mountainous locations. Everyone who tries the plant finds the effects to be intensely invigorating, but there are some more purist types who are maligning the plant as an addicting drug, and that we have an addiction problem. Anyone who’s tried it knows better than that, but how can you convince a closed mind? I personally think that it might have something to do with our future as a race, there’s something important seeming about it.

  Very soon we have our first new addition to the colony that has been named, Far Haven, and is the second human being ever born on Haley‘s world. Now the population is eight hundred and four. That count won’t stay long as there are a number of other pregnancies that have occurred.

  Not a week after this magical celebration that everyone took part in, Haley informs Rick and I that she needs to tell us something.

  “I went to medical today to have something checked out, and they told me that I am pregnant.” She smiles brightly.

  “Oh no!” I let escape my lips.

  Haley stops smiling and pouts at me.

  “I’m sorry baby. I am happy for you. It’s only that I just turned forty not long ago, I’m way too young to be a grandma.”

  “Don’t worry mom. I won’t tell anyone that you are over the hill, and decrepit, but I’m sure that they have already figured that out.” She glares at me.

  “Oh… your right. I apologize Haley. This is a joyous occasion, and it’s not about me.”

  “Damned straight!” She makes sure.

  “So who’s the lucky father?” Rick pries.

  “I’m not quite sure. We are going to have to have some tests done to determine that.”

  “Ohhhh.” Rick moans and buries his face in his hands.

  “We won’t worry about that right now. We need to help you through your pregnancy every way we can.” I pat her hand.

  “Thanks mom, sorry about getting pissed off at you.”

  “I deserved it.”

  Rick picks his head up. “Just how many… fellows need to be tested?”

  “I got it narrowed down to about six, give or take.” She is not shameful at all.

  “Oh Haley.” Now I bury my face in my hands, and actually cry.

  “I’m kidding!” She blurts. “We only need to test three guys.”

  Rick just shakes his head.

  During Haley’s second trimester we lose our first colonist. They found the man out in the deep woods, but he has no obvious cause of death. What’s more is that it was one of the young men who had dated Haley. I go to talk to her right away.

  “You heard about Jimmy Dougherty didn’t you?”

  “Yes, what happened?” She is insistent. “What happened to him mom?”

  “I just got the coroner’s report. They can’t find a cause of death.” I watch her face, and only see her confusion, then she realizes why I’m here.

  “It wasn’t me, mom. I would never do that to a human that wasn’t trying to hurt me. I haven’t been with him since I found out I am pregnant.”

  “Is he one of the three guys that we will need to test?”

  “No, I only did it once with Jimmy, he wasn’t any good at it.”

  “Since we haven’t seen a single ‘Soul-Sucker’ since our return, what am I supposed to think?”

  She blinks and shakes her head. “I didn’t do it mom! I’m not a murderer! You really believe I am one?” She is in tears, and I have to hug her. With her reaction, I believe her.

  “I do believe you baby. That’s not like you at all. Which means that maybe the ‘Soul-Suckers’ are still out there.”

  “They are, sometimes, but they come and go as they please.”

  “Are you saying that you are in contact with them somehow?” My eyes widen.

  “Of course, I do have one of their souls inside me, remember?”

  “How can I forget?”

  I pass the word to all colonists that the ‘Soul-Suckers’ are most likely back, and to be alert, reminding them that a flashlight will scare them off. The colony council recommends building some towers with powerful search lights on them around the perimeter of town. I authorize the use of material, and the ‘Sucker’ guard towers are built.

  Haley asks me about them, and I tell her what they are for.

  “Oh, I should have told you that the ‘Suckers’ won’t be feeding on any other humans. They needed one though, and Jimmy was it.

  “What did they need to feed on his soul for, was it in exchange for the one you took of theirs?”

  “No mom. It’s for another reason, but I can’t explain it.”

  “You’re sure of this baby?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Good.”

  I find it strange that Rick has never asked me if I think Haley killed Jimmy. To him it is almost like there is no possible connection in his mind, or that he is just keeping quiet of his own suspicions. No one else has asked about this either, and I must assume that her ability has been kept secret from them all. I don’t care if she really did it, and is just lying to cover her tracks. She’s my daughter! I would never do anything to endanger her, regardless. So I make like Rick, and keep my trap shut.

  When Haley goes into labor, the baby comes very quickly, and with no complications thank goodness. Two of the possible fathers are in the waiting room as Rick and I are in the delivery room with her. It is a healthy six pound, seven ounce baby girl. Haley names her right away; Devon Haley Hobart. I still cringe at that last name, and I don’t know why. I do not cringe at my brand new baby granddaughter. She is so wonderfully beautiful!

  The father is soon identified, and he turns out to be a nice young man who promises to take good care of both our daughter and granddaughter. Haley has other things in mind though, and she rejects the idea of being a family with him outright. She does consent to letting him have equal time with his daughter, but she insists on not being tied down to just one guy. I know she gets her promiscuity from me, I was the same way after all. However I stop telling this to Rick, as I do want to be monogamous with just him. Trust me he sure knows how to push my buttons, even better to this day! I feel for Haley in one way, she has chosen sex over intimacy, and I realize now that is a mistake. Intimacy rules! Plus there is still the great sex! As much as I can handle. I do hope after my ‘time of change’ comes that I can still enjoy sex. It is common knowledge that some women don’t. Please don’t let me be one of them.

  Just after Devon Haley’s fourth birthday, some of the old Earth vices rear their ugly head. There are some settlers that have moved far outside of Far Haven’s boundaries, and established farms for the Earth crops that the Legacy relented were allowed to be transplanted here. Now one of these pioneer farmers has opened a drinking establishment. The first on planet.

  Though this is out of the town’s jurisdiction, it is not out of the Governor’s jurisdiction. I gained a second term not too long ago, so that means it is my responsibility. Immediately I go out to see for myself, and find a seemingly respectable bar, and I even have a couple of drinks with them there. I still don’t really like the idea of repeating our mistakes, however I can’t help but to not interfere with the will of the general populous, and since many of the colonists are also visiting the establishment, I will leave well enough alone.

  The currency that I reluctantly allowed to be established is called trade credits, and they are accrued and spent electronically. To me the necessity of keeping exact track of contributions to society is wrong, still the colonists need a way to encourage their hard labors. The Government doesn’t work on these credits, instead we ask, and they give. However we don’t impose any other tax on the people. The whole idea is to grow, together.

  We had built housing for five hundred additional colonists if they were to arrive from Earth during the fifth year of our colony. It really surprised us when a very large Earth fleet s
howed up, with twenty thousand new colonists. They bring wonderful news that humanity is spreading rapidly among the stars, yet with wisdom. We tell them we are sorry that we have only prepared housing for five hundred of them, but they tell us that they came quite prepared. Prepared to grow our colony by leaps and bounds.

  Suddenly I am besieged by all the new projects happening, as I have to sign off on each and every one of them. They also brought some fantastic new technology with them as well, namely some three dimensional printers that place single molecules, or molecular groups directly together, in any form we can foresee, within certainnatural restrictions of course. They say this technology makes the need for any form of currency obsolete. For that I am very grateful.

  The best thing of all that the new comers brought with them is a video message from Stephanie, for me personally. I can see some more gray in her hair, and she’s not dyeing it, but she is still as lovely as ever.

  “Devon, I know we will never see each other again. This was our destiny in the stars woman. I am so damned proud to have been your friend, and serving with you has been my complete honor. I never met anyone as courageous as you Devon. To go back, twenty thousand light years distant, knowing you would never see home again. Yeah, that’s the boldness I first saw in your eyes. I knew it then, that first day I met you in the cafeteria.” She tears up, remembering. “I’m a sentimental fool, my apologies.” She wipes the wetness away. “Anyway, I just wanted to say that I always admired you Devon, in more ways than one. I hope you and your family are loving life there. You mission is so much more important than I can possibly explain. The new colonists have details of our next expedition planned to Hobart’s system, hopefully in only two years, maybe three. There is so much going on here now, it is overwhelming me. I think I will retire soon, and sit on my laurel ridden ass.” She laughs. God I always wanted her.

  “Anyhow girl, my thoughts are often with you. Live, grow, and love it all. I hope you know I will always be your eternal friend Devon, much love to you and yours.” That was the end of it. I cry, as I miss my friend, and wish she had been my lover too. I make sure to record a message to Stephanie and get it aboard the returning vessels before they leave. In it I tell her I also wish we’d had the opportunity for more intimacy, and wish her the very greatest things in life, as she surely deserved them all.

  Then about three months after the huge number of new colonists arrived, Haley became somewhat more distant from us. I learn from my sources that she is visiting the drinking establishment out in the new settlements. Then I get reports that the place has also become a bordello, as well as a bar. I confront her next time I see her.

  “Are you going to come back and raise your daughter Haley, or does her father bear the burden with your father and I?”

  “I want to experience everything I can mom, I have too before…”

  “Before what? What’s going on with you baby? I’m worried sick, and your dad too!”

  “Something’s going to happen mom, but I can’t tell you what, I don’t know. I just know that I don’t have long.”

  “Well, you sure won’t if you don’t quit whoring around, and drinking.” I lecture with righteousness, not!

  “I really like screwing mom. I can’t help it, and I don’t get to for very much longer, just trust me damn it!”

  “So is this how you’re going to make your daughter proud of you then?”

  “Zip it mom! She’ll be more proud of me than she ever will be of you, I promise.”

  “Sure, you’ll be famous for screwing everyone in the colony, that’s got me beat, you bet baby.” I chuckle at her ignorance.

  “I do love you mom, but you’re so mistaken. I’m sorry for you.”

  Just the very next month we have our first explainable homicide occur. It happened out at the whorehouse and bar where my daughter works. She is a prostitute now, and from the rumors reported to me she is more than promiscuous and wild, she is depraved with sex to all extremes even. We shield Devon Haley from all this of course, as we and her father share raising her. The crime was a simple drunken bar fight, where one big fellow killed the smaller man with a single punch. Now the council has deferred all justice to me alone. So I put the man to a life time of required community service, especially for the family of the victim, and most everyone applauds my ruling. Even several years after the event, this seemed to secure my re-election as Governor.

  Rick has fully explored the surrounding planets of Hobart’s star, and has even been to dozens of nearby star systems in the X-15. The arrival of the big fleet brought several more interstellar craft for us to use. Now we are laying plans for our own first spawned colony on another star system. Rick’s exploration teams have found many very suitable planets in the Goldie-locks zones around nearby main sequence stars.

  By the time Devon Haley is five, we have two colony preparing outposts on neighboring star’s planets. Rick is leading this effort, and is doing so very efficiently. Our industrial capacity is now to the point where we can build our own star ships, and even produce the element 115 fuel pellets for them. We use the resources to support the effort to establish other colonies as quickly as we can, this is our newly divine purpose. However we still have not been contacted yet by the Legacy since our return. I must assume that the worlds we have chosen are acceptable by the Legacy, as I am certain that they are watching us.

  I have been given reports that my daughter Haley has had several illegitimate children while prostituting herself, and my heart just breaks. I can’t tell Rick, though I sure could use his support. I won’t break his world, and heart; I love him way too much to do that. What has gotten into her, well… besides the obvious?

  Rick tells me one night after he ravages me, that he is going to present an idea to the colonization board. It is a radical idea he says.

  “I want to plan to build an intergalactic vessel, and to colonize in another galaxy baby. What do you think about that?”

  “What? Wait, we have a whole galaxy here to explore and colonize first Rick, right?”

  “Sure, we are doing that. Our first colony to spread from us is just a few years away, you know that, but I also think we should begin to think a little bigger than just that.”

  “You are crazy mister.” I chuckle. “So why not? Just how big a venture would this be anyway?”

  “The vessel would need to be quite enormous to carry the ten thousand colonists required for a base colony that can be self-sustaining, as they will not have any supply ships coming after them, at least for the foreseeable future anyway.”

  “So how long of a voyage would this entail?”

  “At least seventeen and a half years in hyper time, fourth dimensional travel, but some of the quantum theorists that just arrived, well last year anyhow, well they say that Star Command has been experimenting with fifth dimensional travel as well, and even beyond this theoretically anyhow. So it could feasibly take much less time.”

  “Okay, let’s bounce the idea off everyone else’s head too, and see what they think. I think you’re a kook, myself, but a very sexy kook at that.” I reach to excite him again, and it works as it always does, yeah buddy! Do me again!

  Even before Rick has the opportunity to present his idea, I have a bad feeling about my daughter Haley one day. I haven’t seen her in several years now, and am about to order my agents to bring her to me so I can try to help save her, even against her will; when I am suddenly informed that she is requesting to see me. I let her in immediately.

  “Hi mom. Good to see you again.” I sense that she means this.

  “Hi baby. I sure missed you.” I smile, and she comes to hug me. My tears flow, and so do hers.

  “I need to tell you of something that is soon to happen mother.” She only uses that term to address me when she’s distancing herself from me.

  “Are you pregnant yet again? How many will this be?” I am fuming angry very suddenly.

  “No, I have five children as is required. What will soon happ
en is of far greater significance than that would seem mother.”

  “As required? By what, your damned horny hormones?”

  “No mother. It is required for the proper first intermixing of our souls.”

  “What?”

  “I had to spread the new eggs of humanity’s future. Not the only future, but one of them for sure.”

  “You aren’t making any sense Haley, please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing is wrong mom, everything is just perfect… you’ll see.”

  “What will I see baby? When?”

  “Soon, don’t let it frighten you mom. I do love you, and dad, with all my heart. You just can’t understand that I had to do what I have accomplished.”

  “And just what have you accomplished Haley?”

  “Something wonderful mom… you’ll see. I sure do hope you can understand it.”

  “Understand what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I hate being teased so.

  Sure enough, just as Star Command promised with the last batch of arrivals, the next fleet shows up right on the prescribed time. Just three years to the day from the last arrival. This time we are all very surprised when a half a million new colonists join us, and they are prepared far more than we are. Suddenly within several months our small city has grown into a very big one. We also have launched our own first star colony on a nearby star system. They are just getting basically established, but the new influx of people, materials, and new technology is flabbergasting, so we share it all.

  It is a very quick transition from a colony to an interstellar hub of progression. Haley is still with our family, and she hasn’t returned back to the brothel. For this I am eternally glad, and she seems somewhat content, though I wouldn’t call her happy either. It is as though something very heavy is pressing on her conscious. I think maybe she did kill Jimmy after all.

  One night just as Rick attempts to make love with me, I stop him, and confront him with the thought.

  “I think maybe Haley did kill Jimmy, babe, and I don’t know what’s going on with her, but I feel it has something to do with the ‘Soul-Suckers’ for sure.”

 

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