by John F. Carr
The muggers paused and looked at the giant running toward them, brandishing a two-by-four. One turned to the other and said, “Come on, Pete, let’s get out of here. We’ve got the rube’s money. We don’t need no trouble.”
The mugger started to run down the alley away from Langston, while Pete paused to kick the man one last time. Then he turned and followed his fellow mugger down the alley.
Langston stopped by the mugger’s victim. His chest was heaving; he was gasping for air and feeling dizzy. But he kneeled down and managed to say, “Take it easy friend. You’re okay now. Those two bastards are gone. We’ll get you to a hospital.” The man hadn’t heard him; he had slipped into unconsciousness.
Since the recent uprising most of the Harmonies had been driven out of Castell City. There were, however, a few brave souls who stayed and ran a small clinic. After all, no one could object to that. It was run as an act of atonement and as an act of kindness for those in need. For Jaime Taylor, the need was great. He woke up on a cot. The first thing he noticed was that he hurt all over. He tried moving his arms. His right arm was in a cast. But he was warm. Then he noticed there was someone sitting near him. “Who…who are you?” he asked a bit dazed. “Where am I? What happened?”
“My name is Jonathon…Jonathon Langston. You were mugged. You’re in the New Harmony Church’s clinic. My friend George Watson and I were walking by that ally you were mugged in. We chased away the muggers and brought you here.”
“What…why’d you do that?” he stammered.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you stop the wallopers?”
“The what?”
“The muggers.”
“Oh, them.” Langston didn’t have a good answer, so he told as much of the truth as he knew. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just seen too many beatings in the last year and I had to do something about this one.”
“You’re a wombat, Langston. Haven’t been on Haven long have you?” He didn’t wait for an answer but added, “Still, thanks mate.”
Taylor paused for a moment, and then he put his left hand up to his neck feeling for something under his shirt. There was a cord around his neck with a small leather bag at the end of it. He squeezed the bag and then smiled. He relaxed, his breathing became slower and he fell back to sleep.
Langston had been coming to see Taylor for five days before asking his question. “Jaime,” Langston said. “What’s so important about that bag?”
“What bag mate?” he responded.
“The one around your neck.”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Just a good luck charm.”
“Okay, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine.” Langston changed the subject. “They tell me that you’re well enough to be discharged tomorrow.
What are you going to do then?”
“I don’t know. Those wallopers took all the money I had.”
“If you want you can stay with George and me for a few days until you get back on your feet.”
“Thanks mate. I owe you.”
* * *
After he was discharged from the clinic, Taylor made his way to the boarding house where Langston and Watson rented a room. The room was small and had a little stove at the far end. There were two narrow wooden beds on either side of it.
As Taylor limped into the room Watson threw him a blanket. “Here, this is the best we can do. You can sleep on the floor over there near the stove,” he said pointing.
A few days later Taylor asked, “What do you two blokes do? You disappear every twenty-four hours and come back later with food.”
“We go out and hunt for work. We’re both good at fixing tech. Or at least what little of it they have here. I used to be a Tech Rep until I did something stupid,” Watson said.
“You knock off the company and get caught?” When Watson looked perplexed Taylor clarified, “You know, steal from them.”
“No, nothing like that. No, I went slumming down in New Orleans. I was on my way back to my hotel when I got caught up in a BuReloc sweep. It was in the middle of the night and I was drunk. No one cared that I was a Taxpayer. At least I think I told them I was a Taxpayer. Anyway, they just shipped me off. I met Jonathon on the BuReloc ship,” he said pointing to Langston.
“I like to tinker with things. And, I’m good at it. George and I have that in common. We also watch each other’s back. Turns out you need friends to survive in those ships.”
“How about you Jaime? What’s your crime?”
“I’m a Mineralogist, or was. I used to work for Dover. I started out with them in Oz. Australia to you,” he added. “I specialized in opals. They offered me a chance to come here for a couple of years and go home a rich man. You know about the shimmer stones?”
Langston answered, “Not much. Only that they’re found here and nowhere else.”
“They thought I could help them learn about the stones. Maybe point them to new deposits. I made a lot of progress. That is until my boss’s wife made a move on me. You know how many available Shelias there are here? So, I started to put it to her, like regular. My boss found out and fired me. Now I have no way home. I’m stuck here like I was some common transportee.” Taylor realized what he said and added, “Sorry, mates, no offense.”
“None taken. After all we’re not common transportees either,” Watson said grinning.
“You blokes are fair dinkum,” Taylor said.
“Talk English will you?” Watson replied.
Taylor gave them a broad smile. “You’re the blokes who can’t speak the Queen’s English.” Then he got a serious look on his face and said, “If I show you something will you both promise not to tell anyone?”
“Sure Jaime. But what could you show us that anyone would care about?”
“You blokes have been right good to me. You’ve helped me out. Maybe there’s a way I can pay you back.”
Taylor took the bag from around his neck and opened it. He took out a small hand lens magnifier and handed it to Langston. Then he pushed the bottom of the bag out through the opening and slowly peeled back the seam. There was a small stone nestled there. It looked dull.”
“What is it?” Langston asked.
Taylor took the magnifier from Langston and said, “Here, look through this. Let me turn the stone over first.”
Taylor turned the stone over. It flashed in Langston’s eyes. It was scintillating. Langston had never seen anything so beautiful. He was mesmerized by it.
“That cobbers, is our ticket back to Earth. Not that stone since it’s flawed but ones like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I learned some about shimmer stones. I learned about their structure and where they are likely to form. I learned how to cut them to maximize their brilliance.”
Langston quickly asked, “Their structure, what is it?”
“I doubt you’d understand, mate.”
“Try me.”
“They are a unique quasi-crystal made out of carbon and titanium. They have an aperiodic structure in all directions.” Taylor went on in more and more technical detail for several minutes. Langston sat there absorbing it all.
Finally, after Taylor had finished, Langston said, “It’s an icosahedral structure? That’s amazing. I never imagined there was such beauty in nature. I knew it existed in mathematics but not in something I could hold in my hands.” Then Langston got a faraway look in his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like ‘quantum spin liquids’.
Taylor looked at Watson and said, “Is he yanking my chain mate?”
“No, that’s how he gets sometimes. He was sentenced for unauthorized scientific research. Langston is one smart bloke,” Watson said using one of Taylor’s expressions.
Returning from his contemplation Langston asked, “Have you discovered the equations behind the structure? They shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.”
“No, never got that far. But that’s not the point. The point is I have a good i
dea where we can find more of those. And just one good-sized stone will buy our way back to Earth or any other planet we want to go.”
“What are you proposing?” Watson asked.
“Why, we go hunting for those stones of course. We all contribute something and we all split the results equally. I’ll contribute my knowledge of the stones and where to find them. You two need to buy the expedition supplies. What do you say, mates?”
It was Watson who spoke up first. “Where should we look? Has anyone looked on the northern steppes?”
Taylor answered, “Nah, mate. If I’m right there’s nothing there. And they’re too dangerous anyway.” Then he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a map of the Shangri-La Valley. He showed it to Langston and Watson. “This is where I think we’ll find the beauties,” he said pointing to the southeast end of the valley near the Crater Sea.
Watson said, “It would take a miracle for us to get there. Do you know how far away that is? That’s thirty-five hundred kilometers from here. That’d be like riding a muskylope from New York to Denver. And, we don’t know this planet.”
Taylor continued to pursue it. “Look here. We could take a steamboat up to Purity. Then ride our muskylopes south to the Southern Coniferous Taiga. We’d then turn east and head up toward the Crater Sea. That’d cut our riding in half.”
“That’s still eighteen hundred kilometers.”
Langston added, “We couldn’t carry enough food. We’d need to hunt for it. That means we’d need guides and hunters experienced in the Haven back country. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to bring anyone else in on this. With shimmer stones at stake I wouldn’t trust anyone else unless I knew them real well. Are there any areas closer?”
“There is one other area. But it’s less likely we’ll find stones there,” Taylor said.
Langston responded with a question, “Why’s that Jaime?”
“They might be buried deeper than most.”
Watson asked, “And why do you say that?”
“I’ve studied where shimmer stones are dug up. They seem to cluster around old lava flows. That’s common knowledge among prospectors but I wanted to verify it. It occurred to me to look at some old gravity field survey maps. The survey was done back when the Edward V explored Haven. The data is not widely available but Dover had a copy of it. I don’t think they ever used it though. Maybe because they didn’t know they had it. Anyway, I found it while rummaging through the Edward V’s maintenance records. Never mind why I was doing that. When I put the survey over a map of shimmer stone mining areas I found that there were exposed dikes near all the finds. Now, here’s the corker. From the survey I also found several buried dikes in the Shangri-La Valley. The closest one is three hundred kilometers southwest of here. The dike doesn’t show up on any geological map. So, I don’t think anyone knows it’s there. But if there are stones there how far down they are is any bloke’s guess.”
Watson nodded while looking at the map. “It looks like we can take a steamboat down the Xanadu a couple of hundred kilometers and cut our muskylope travel in half. It might take us less than a week of riding to get there.”
“Ripper, mates, we’re on a good lurk here.”
Watson raised his eyes to the ceiling and groaned. Langston just shook his head slowly back and forth.
“It means we’re on to a good thing,” Taylor explained.
The three friends sat on their muskylopes and watched the steamboat pull up its ramp, back away from shore and head downriver. Taylor turned to his two friends and said, “That’s it, mates. We’re on our own now. Might as well get cracking.”
Each man carried a semi-automatic rifle and trailed another muskylope carrying supplies. They turned away from the river and headed south.
As they headed away from the river the lush foliage gave way to drier, sparser plant life. The area they traveled through was unpopulated. They were soon riding over low rolling hills covered with what looked like dirt and sand. On closer examination it turned out to be Haven cryptobiotic soil; a crusty mat of cyanobacteria, algae, fungus and lichen. Larger plant life remained scarce. Maybe there were heavy metals in the soil. They didn’t know. It was like a desert without the heat.
Here and there they passed tufts of red screw grass with its strange corkscrew blades. Other places they passed clusters of wireweed bushes with their stiff bristles. In the sky they sometimes spotted what looked like dactyls flying high overhead. It was quiet. The only sound they heard was the wind.
Four standard days after leaving the river they came to a stand of ironwood trees in a small depression. Truenight was falling. They made camp close to a stream flowing nearby. First they made sure their muskylopes had water and grazed on the few tufts of screw grass that grew there. Then they set up their tent and made dinner. Finally they wrapped themselves in blankets and turned in. A few hours after they bedded down, the muskylopes began to mew softly. Then the night exploded.
Lieutenant Jaspers and his Marine SAS team had been on Haven a standard week. Upon their arrival they had set up their base of operations just outside Castell City next to the Seventy-seventh Marine Headquarters. For the past week they had been working with local informants and using other technical means to locate Langston. A few hours ago they had identified his position. Now they were preparing to retrieve him. In the meantime they were keeping watch on Langston with a high altitude UAV using its infrared camera.
“Lieutenant, you’d better have a look at this,” Corporal Eddington said.
“What is it Corporal?”
“I pulled back on the camera view. It looks like someone else is heading toward Langston’s camp sir.”
Lieutenant Jaspers looked at the display. He saw a five person group moving in the direction of Langston’s camp. The Lieutenant watched for a few minutes. The group was moving like a military force. Lieutenant Jaspers turned to the drone operator. “Corporal Eddington, give me a close-up of that unknown,” he said pointing to one of the small blobs on the screen.
“Yes, sir.”
Through computer processing the image jumped. “That looks like a Kalashnikov. And they’re wearing night vision goggles.”
What kind of goat rope is this? Aloud Lieutenant Jaspers said, “How close to Langston’s camp are they?”
“About fifteen klicks, sir. Based on the distance and the speed they’re moving, my guess is that they’ll be there within the hour,” the Corporal replied.
“Sergeant Petrov, load up the team and prepare for an emergency interdiction mission. Full gear and ammo load. Wheels up in five.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Sergeant spoke into his shoulder mike and ‘On Full Kits’ immediately sounded through the team’s comm system.
The Lieutenant continued, “We don’t know if these are hostiles but it’s probable.” He pointed at the screen. “Our first priority is to retrieve Langston alive. Our second priority is to protect the other civilians in Langston’s party. The Rules of Engagement are to fire if fired upon.”
Five minutes later the tilt-rotor took off and headed southwest. As they flew Lieutenant Jaspers and Sergeant Petrov looked over a Tri-V terrain map on their tablets and planned their troop deployment.
Lieutenant Jaspers addressed the warrant officer flying the tilt-rotor. “Here’s the LZ.” He tapped an icon and transferred the map coordinates from his tablet to the avionics display.
“Gunny, set up the sniper team here,” he said, pointing to a hillock overlooking Langston’s camp. “Set up a covering fire position here on this second hillock. Position the remainder of the team along this line. Fan out and form a perimeter between the potential hostiles and Langston’s camp.”
They flew in from the east to the LZ a klick south of Langston’s camp and set down. Once on the ground they silently double-timed it around Langston’s camp and deployed as planned. The group following Langston almost immediately came into view.
On a secure comm cha
nnel Lieutenant Jaspers said, “Here we go, Gunny.” Then through a megaphone he announced, “This is Lieutenant Jaspers of the CoDominium Marines. Halt and state your intentions.”
The approaching group dived for cover and began firing. The Marines returned fire.
The Marine corpsman attended the wounded and dying from both sides. The Marines had lost three men. The hostiles had been wiped out; they were outgunned but did extraordinarily well considering the larger force they were up against. The hostiles were carrying weapons and kits of standard CoDominium issue. Just before dying one of the hostiles mumbled something about his mother and Lebensraum to the corpsman. He said it with a Sauron accent. This, and how they fought, were indications that the hostiles were Saurons.
Langston was still in shock from the firefight. He was sitting on a cot in a tent holding a cup of Hecate tea. It warmed his hands but not much else. Langston’s left thigh had a bloody field dressing around it. It throbbed even though the medic had given him a shot of some type of anesthetic. Langston knew he’d been lucky. If he hadn’t dived behind that ironwood tree he’d be lying out there with his friends. He remembered the fear and the confusion of the fight. They had awakened to gunfire. They didn’t know who was fighting whom. They didn’t know who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. They only knew that they had to grab their rifles and make for the ironwood trees. Only he made it there alive.
He remembered holding Taylor as he died. Taylor gave Langston his shimmer stone. He remembered Taylor saying, “You’ve been a good cobber. But you can’t save me this time. Here, take this.” Taylor had then pushed the small brown bag into Langston’s hands. Then Taylor slipped away. Langston took the bag and shoved it into his pocket just as the bullets came for him again. This time they hit him. Fortunately, they missed Langston’s femoral artery. A centimeter further to the right and he would have bled out before the Marines were able to get to him.
More shocks. The CoDominium had come looking for him. Him! When they found Langston behind the ironwood tree they had his photo and compared it to his face. Then they took a DNA sample. Now there was a guard posted outside the tent. A shiver ran down his spine. The soldiers seemed polite enough but what did they want from him? Wasn’t exiling him to this hellhole of a planet enough? He didn’t trust the CoDominium and these were some of their most elite troops. He knew he wasn’t going to escape from them.