Victim of Circumstance (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 3)

by Robert F Hays

  The third was Muna, Chock’s common law wife. She was an earthborn white woman of whom Michael knew very little. She was quite attractive and suddenly appeared as Chock’s wife four years before. Muna was her Hopi name given to her by Chock. Michael didn’t even know her original name. She was an odd character who dressed in a caftan and always wore beads, a style reminiscent of the late 1960s.

  The strato slowly settled on the pad. “Power down,” Michael said. “In park.”

  “Powering down,” the computer replied. “In parked state.”

  “Open left hatch,” Michael said.

  The hatch on the left side of the strato popped out and slid up and over the roof of the vehicle. Michael looked out to see Halbert just outside the door.

  “You did better that time,” Halbert said. “Last time you almost ran into my vehicle.”

  “Uncle Halbert,” Michael said. “I missed it by a mile.”

  Halbert laughed. “Not from where I was standing.”

  Michael climbed out. “Hello Chock,” he said. “How’s the education coming?”

  “Very good,” Chock said. “I’ve been learning on that Jameson subluminal system in Halbert’s 3V room and on my portable educational unit.”

  “He’s doing just fine,” Muna said. “I can’t say the same for me learning Hopi. There’s no modern learning system on the language.”

  “There will be one soon,” Chock said. “I’m teaching it.”

  “He’s taking to the modern stuff better than me,” Muna said.

  They turned and headed for the house. It was a typical two story farm house. Its walls were constructed from the area’s rock and soil. Formed and shaped by electrostatic force the silicate mixture was subjected to intense heat until it almost turned to granite. Its reddish brown coloration was indicative of the local high iron content. When the sun was at certain angles, the walls faintly sparkled due to the quartz crystals in its composition. The interior and roof were made of wood taken from a carbon deposit valley. Impregnated with a plastic polymer, the organic material would endure for centuries.

  The front door automatically opened as they approached. It opened silently which meant it was either new or over seven years old. Eight years before, all doors opened silently, then the Young family arrived from the twenty first century. They brought volumes of video tapes and DVDs many of which were science fiction. In them, the futuristic doors of space ships and houses opened with a swishing sound. Doors that made the sound became fashionable. They were manufactured that way and older ones were retrofitted with a sound maker. After seven years, the fashion returned to the silent ones.

  “There’s a delay in the space liner’s departure,” Halbert said. “I’m not really excited about going up there four hours ahead of time. It’s a tourist class liner. No real amenities like the other ones you’ve been on.”

  “Is there a problem?” Michael said.

  “Probably the usual. Authorization and paperwork. The port authority here is quite efficient, thanks to your father, but they have to put up with all the Commonwealth agencies to go interstellar.”

  “I looked at the ship on the net,” Michael said. “They do have a lounge and zero gravity games room.”

  “Yes, but they’re nothing like the other ones of the passenger fleet that visit Casia, the Monterey, Mariposa and Orontes. The Yalta’s a passenger carrying freighter.”

  They sat at a large table in the dining room.

  Michael shrugged. “It gets you where you want to go.”

  Halbert laughed. “That’s why I like all of you. One of the richest families in the galaxy and you have no pretensions what so ever.”

  “Well, the adventure camp I’m going to did cost a lot.”

  “You should come with me on an adventure camp,” Chock said. “I would teach you the ways of the warrior.”

  “Not again,” Muna sighed. “I grew up thinking that the American Indian lived an idyllic life in harmony with nature with peace and understanding. All I get from Chock is war, kill and spend a pleasant Saturday afternoon torturing an enemy prisoner to death.”

  “In the words of your people, my people were mean mother fuckers,” Chock laughed. “Men are warriors. If those Commonwealth people would follow my ways, the war with those other people would be finished. Put me on that 3V room thing with a prisoner, then send the recording to them. When they see how terrible the torture is they will run in battle every time they see our people coming. What I would do first is….”

  “Please Chock,” Muna interrupted, sticking her fingers in her ears, “don’t go into detail. It makes me sick.”

  “Chock, are you one of us now?” Michael said.

  “The blood of my people is now with the Americans,” Chock said. “And the Americans are mixed with the others that speak English. Your people are now my people.”

  “But us Americans took your land and killed your people,” Michael said.

  Chock shrugged. “It was taken from us in battle. My tribe took it from another tribe. That tribe took it from the tribe that was there before them. It’s the natural way of warriors. We lost the war so we lost the land.”

  “Why are you here today?” Michael said. “More English classes on the 3V?”

  “No,” Halbert said. “They’re going to be house sitting while I’m gone. Actually I should say dog sitting. I don’t like leaving my dogs in the care of autoserves. They get very upset about the lack of human companionship.”

  “Then we’ll go back to the forest,” Muna said. “I don’t like being away from nature too long.”

  “I like it better here,” Chock said. “Since I’ve known houses I’m finding the forest a pain in the butt.”

  “Oh Chock,” Muna said. “A house? What about the smell of the trees and the grass?”

  “And the biting of insects and the thorns in your butt whenever you sit.”

  “What about your warrior heritage?” Michael said.

  “I can still go out and kill the enemy from a house,” Chock said. “And I’ll be more rested from a comfortable night in a bed, so I will have more energy to fight.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” Halbert said.

  “Hot chocolate please?” Michael said.

  “Computer,” Halbert said. “One hot chocolate with marshmallows.”

  “Order confirmed,” the house computer said. “One hot chocolate with marshmallows.”

  “There,” Chock said. “The machines would take care of food and I could practice my arts of battle.”

  Halbert chuckled. “We had a corporeality company design a program for Chock. Every time he’s here he’s in the games room shooting at holographs and letting out with war whoops.”

  Michael chuckled. “Are you able to scalp a corporeality holograph?”

  An autoserve entered the room and Michael took a mug of hot chocolate from a tray.

  “I only learned about scalping here,” Chock said. “My tribe didn’t do that, but it sounds like a very good idea. I’d like to try it.”

  “Oh Chock,” Muna said. “Could we get off the subject of blood and gore? It’s making me nauseous.”

  “Oh Chock, oh Chock, oh Chock,” Chock said. “That’s all I get from my woman. I think I’ll go on a raid and capture another woman and have two wives. Maybe this one will not be so critical if she has competition for my affections.”

  Halbert frowned. “I think the police would take a dim view of you raiding farms around here and carrying off women.”

  Chock smiled. “It was a joke. I’m an American Indian, not a stupid Indian. You don’t understand a dry sense of humor?”

  “Sometimes I do not know if you’re joking or serious.”

  Chock laughed. “As they said in that university course I took, that is the basic element of a dry sense of humor, keep people guessing.”

  “University course,” Muna sighed. “In eight years you’ve had more education than I did in twelve years of school and two years of college ba
ck on Earth.” She turned to Michael. “Out in the forest it’s all I can do to get him to take that damn portable educational unit off his head. We sit and watch a beautiful, romantic sunset and I comment on the changing colors. What does he say? It’s due to the spectral shift in the light caused by the refractive index of the atmosphere. Then when the sun goes down he uses that portable 3V unit the Montoya’s gave him and watches old John Wayne movies from your father’s collection.”

  Chock brightened with a broad grin. “Hey, one thing I’m thankful for. We’re called Indians because Christopher Columbus was looking for Asia and thought we were from India. It’s good he wasn’t looking for Turkey. Those old movies wouldn’t sound right with John Wayne yelling: ‘Circle the wagons men, here comes the Turkeys!’.”

  “There’s another thing that’s out of place,” Halbert said. “In the corporeality room when he fights a war, the snap of a photon pulse rifle and Indian war whoops don’t exactly sound right together.”

  “I wish I had one of those pulse rifles when we hunted buffalo,” Chock said. “We wouldn’t have had to spend half a day crawling to sneak up on them and get within range of our bows.”

  “A pulse rifle would be cruel,” Muna said.

  “Cruel?” Chock said. “Would you prefer they die slowly as we shot arrow after arrow into them? A pulse rifle would be quick.”

  “It would be cruel to use any weapon,” Muna said.

  “Not when it means the difference between eating and going hungry,” Chock said. “If it keeps me from starving to death, I’ll be cruel any time.”

  “Did you go on many hunts?” Michael said.

  “Quite a few,” Chock replied.

  “How about war parties?” Michael said.

  “Hey, I was only seventeen when that Time Stone thing got me. There were no wars going while I was of age. All I have is the stories of the older men. That’s why I’m ready for a fight. I still haven’t proved myself as a man and a warrior.”

  “There are other ways of proving yourself as a man,” Muna said. “Make love not war.”

  “I can do both,” Chock said. “Many men can do neither.”

  All raised their heads as the sound of another strato outside slowly approached.

  “President Carlisle has arrived on landing pad three,” the house computer announced.

  “Sam’s here!” Chock announced with excitement.

  “What?” Muna said. “Are you two going hunting again?”

  “Yes. Sam got us permits to shoot two buffalo down at the Green Valley reserve. We’re going to make ourselves buffalo robes.”

  “Shoot them with pulse rifles?” Michael asked.

  “No. Sam said he’d bring his muzzle loading black powder rifles.”

  “Damn,” Muna said. “That means I sit around the house and do nothing again.”

  “Do nothing?” Chock said. “You have to rearrange the freezer for the buffalo meat.”

  Michael smiled. “And you can always grind some corn.”

  Muna sighed. “Whatever happened to my dreams of the American Indian idyllic life in harmony with nature with peace and understanding?”

  “It was only a dream,” Halbert said.

  * * *

  The lounge of the cargo space liner was almost empty except for Halbert, Michael and a couple on their honeymoon. Michael leaned back in his observation chair looking at the stars. The planet Casia lay just below their view but could be seen if they pressed their faces against the transparent dome and looked down.

  “You know you and your father saved my life,” Halbert said.

  “My father said he met you in a back alley,” Michael said. “Is that true?”

  “Yes. I was a total alcoholic. Did nothing but sleep and drink. Then you all came along with new stories of adventure and exploration from your library. The thing that got me off my ass was actually meeting your father. It gave me a new feeling for life.”

  “So you went to Hebram and became a farmer.”

  “And ran into your father again.”

  “What did you do before you started drinking?”

  “I was a politician,” Halbert sighed. “I made the mistake of being conscientious, actually wanting to do something good for people. There are two types of politicians, the ones that work for the people and the ones that only work for themselves. The only ones that survive are the latter.”

  “So, you were running for office?”

  “Yes. I was running for a seat on the Continental Council of Corisster. Got caught up in a bribery scandal manufactured by my opponent. I proved my innocence, but people only remember the scandal, never the outcome. Lost the election.”

  “Did you always want to be a politician?”

  “Yes, it’s a family heritage. I’m Halbert Tolliver, direct descendant of the great Barry Tolliver, first president of the planet Batalavia. Politics runs in my blood.”

  “I heard the name at school on Batalavia, but they said that the French Empire destroyed all the records. No one knows a thing about him other than he was the first president.”

  “Actually the planet’s named after him. In the first radio contact with New Hope he announced his name. The transmission was broken up and garbled. They thought he said Batalavia, as they heard his name, was the planet’s name.”

  “That’s not mentioned in the history books.”

  “Family hearsay seldom makes it into the history books.”

  “Are you going to run for office again?”

  Halbert shook his head. “Nope. There’s an old saying: ‘never wear the crown, always be the power behind the thrown’.”

  “Is that why you’re one of father’s advisers?”

  Halbert nodded. “Yep. I can not be the leader myself with a background of scandal and alcoholism, so to advance mankind I can only advise.”

  “And my father will wear the crown?”

  Halbert bowed his head and smiled to himself. “He hasn’t the temperament to rule by himself. He was raised as an Army Sergeant. That’s where his mind is. There are three elements of greatness, the idealist, the realist and the doer. The idealist formulates the great ideas, comes up with the fantastic notions of what should be done. The realist takes the idealist thoughts and molds them into a working plan. The doer takes over from the realist and implements them. The combination of all three is the basis of greatness.”

  “And you’re saying my father doesn’t have the three.”

  “Your father is a doer, and a good one, a great one. He needs the plans handed to him so he can carry them out.”

  “So, you’re going to give him the plans.”

  “We all are.”

  “Me too?” Michael said in surprise.

  “I see you as the idealist. You’re an intellectual.”

  Michael frowned. “I’m sixteen years old.”

  “I’m not talking about now; I’m talking ten years down the road. That’s why you have to concentrate on your education.”

  “So, I’ll be the idealist, you the realist and my father the doer.”

  “Your father’s not going to be capable of continuing very much longer. He’s up to his ears in stress. Shoved trough time, out of the life he was trained to handle, taking care of you two. He’ll sooner or later burn out.”

  “So, who’ll be the doer?”

  “Your brother,” Halbert said. “That’s why I suggested to your father that he be sent on a mission to train him and to prove himself.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  Halbert looked at Michael and smiled. “The less you know the less you can talk in your sleep.”

  Michael nodded. “So, for the time being, a pear farmer and an ex Army Sergeant will rule Casia.”

  “And the Commonwealth.”

  “But dad has only one seat on the Commonwealth Council.”

  “Not for long, there’re greater things in store.”

  Michael looked up at Halbert in surprise, “Greater things? An ex Army Sergeant rul
ing the galaxy?”

  “In politics it’s not what you know, or even who you know, it’s more who knows you. Every school child knows your names and who you are. And I would guess that every sixteen year old girl has your picture on her wall and dreams of dating you. Have you thought of girls yet?”

  Michael shrugged. “Just as friends.”

  “Be careful. Keep it as friends until you’re sure. You and your brother are the most eligible bachelors in the galaxy, wealth and power follow you. Take your time to choose. A woman is another power behind the throne; it had better be the right one.”

  Michael exhaled heavily. “What? Have you picked out a wife for me already?”

  Halbert laughed. “No, I think I’ll leave that task to you. But first we have to concentrate on ending a war. Are you clear on the instructions from your father and the Secret Service?”

  Michael looked around nervously. “Should we be discussing this here? It’s not secure.”

  “Yes it is,” Halbert said. “I have a field damper the Secret Service gave me in my pocket. It totally messes up any listening device aimed at us. They also instructed me to check to see if you had your orders straight.”

  “Yes. On the last day of camp one of my father’s employees will show up and give me cookies, candy and a souvenir Time Stone. I’m to take it home and give it to dad.”

  “Good, good, and a farmer from Stockholm is going to tap me on the shoulder at the agricultural conference and give me one as a joke gift.” Halbert turned to Michael. “Do you want to know what’s in it?”

  “Nope. The less I know the less I can talk in my sleep.”

  “Good boy,” Halbert said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

  Michael thought for a moment. “Chock’s wife, Muna, I think I know who she is. Her face has been altered so has her voice and she’s put on weight, but she reminds me of someone.”

  “Keep it to yourself,” Halbert said in a firm tone. “It’s better not to tell your father. Chock’s happy, she’s happy, it’s better to leave it that way.”