Victim of Circumstance (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 3)

by Robert F Hays

  Michael nodded. “I understand. I won’t say anything.”

  “First jump in five minutes,” said the announcer on the ship’s system.

  “I’ve often wondered,” Michael said. “When we make a jump through a parallel universe to travel a distance in this one, what happens while we’re in that other universe? Are there people there that see us zap in and zap out or is there just nothing? If there are people there, do we cause any problems for them?”

  “As long as they don’t charge a toll,” Halbert said. “What do we care?”

  Chapter 4

  “I have movement in that direction,” Ida said as she shifted the position of her scanner. “About sixteen hundred meters.”

  “Direction of movement?” Colin asked, glancing up from an atmospheric analyzer.

  “Six hundred mills, parallel to us. That’s the fifth one this morning, so I’d say that it’s an established path.”

  “Age?”

  “He moves like a forty year old...” Ida paused as she pressed on the earpiece in her left ear. “And there’s that noise again.”

  Colin reached for his belt and turned up the volume of his own earpiece. Within a few seconds he heard the sound of a human voice making a noise that was half way between a grunt and a hum. “What is it?” he said. “Singing?”

  “Doubt it. It’s a monotone. It could be cultural, an expression of physical strain. The path’s up a steep grade and they all seem to do it at irregular intervals. But, the older ones do it a lot less frequently.”

  “What’s the male to female ratio now?” Colin said as he sat back and visually scanned the grove of eucalyptus trees and ferns that surrounded them.

  “Still 50/50,” Ida said. She reached up and pressed on her ear piece a second time. “There it goes again, that humming or grunting whatever it is.”

  “Why not just go down there and ask,” Yuri said as he stuck his head out the entrance to the camouflage tent. “They were making the same noise yesterday evening as they went the other way. That would’ve been downhill.”

  Colin exhaled heavily. “We need more information first. Just barging in and we may offend some custom or other. We have to appear in the best light possible if our mission is to succeed. So what do we know so far?”

  Yuri laughed. “A bunch of them walk up hill, one way, in the morning and down hill in the evening. Another group does the opposite. Fact two, they grunt as they walk. Hardly information to build the model of a culture on.”

  “Well,” Colin said, pointing. “From this we can probably assume that their village is over there and the fields where they work are over there.”

  “The other way around,” Ida announced. “By their gate they seem more fatigued when going from right to left than the other way. So, home and bed should be to the left.”

  “I wish we could’ve used the sensors before landing,” said a sleepy voice from inside the tent.

  “You heard the briefing,” Colin said. “The Alliance could be monitoring this planet. If they had detected us coming in, we’d be dead meat. So we had to come in fast, blind, and only use input sensors on the ground.”

  “Maybe they have a night shift,” Yuri said as he dragged himself out of the tent. “That’d explain the two way traffic.”

  “Doubt it,” Colin said. “Remember last night we detected only contained cooking fires. No exposed lighting of any sort. I can hardly imagine them plowing fields in the dark. Whatever they’re doing is purely agrarian. Our sensors detected only vegetables.”

  “I have it,” Yuri said as he sat. “Kinky sex. There’re two villages and the men spend days with one woman in one village and nights in the other with another woman. They have a day, night swapping system. That’d explain the grunting, they’re worn out all the time.”

  “Half of them are women, you pervert,” Ida said.

  “Hey, kinkier than I thought,” Yuri laughed.

  “Well, I’m sure that’d suit you,” Ida said. “Why don’t you just go down there and join in.”

  Colin chuckled. “If that’s the case then the people in the village on the right must be awfully hungry. The majority of the cooking fires are in the one on the left.” Colin turned to Yuri. “Any more info from those sub orbital probes we fired off yesterday?”

  “Just confirmation that this is the only inhabited continent. There’re more villages the other side of that mountain range to the west.”

  “What about that last one, the climate probe?”

  “This side of the mountains is semitropical,” Yuri said. “It’d be tropical except for an air current coming from the southern polar religion. On the other side of the mountains it’s warmer, probably fully tropical with a rainy season.”

  “So, what do you think the farms here’re growing?”

  “Probably standard potatoes and onions. Corn would do well here too. It gets cool in winter but no frost. I doubt that rice would do well, no rainy season.”

  “We have to get closer and take a look,” Colin said.

  “We should just give up guessing about their culture and agriculture and send drones,” Yuri said.

  Colin shook his head. “So far it seems they’re technologically is the level of Medieval Europe, but we still can’t rule out a scientific cast. Even masked drones would be detected by the electromagnetic field. Remember, we don’t want to introduce ourselves until we know more about them and their level of technology.”

  “That means more crawling in the dirt,” Yuri said.

  “There’s that grunting again,” Ida said.

  “Looks like we have to move closer.” He turned to Yuri. “You two ready for a scouting patrol?”

  Yuri stood, turned, then kicked the tent. “Ken, what’re you doing in there, playing with yourself?”

  “No,” came the voice from the tent. “Waiting for you to come in here and do it for me.”

  Ida laughed. “When you two are finished playing with each other I have the terrain scan for you.”

  A black face appeared at the tent opening, followed by a broad set of shoulders as Ken crawled out. “Got tired of waiting, plus the fact that you’re lousy at it anyway. Where’s that scan?”

  Ida handed him a data pad over her shoulder. He looked down and examined the image that appeared on the screen. With one finger he traced a route through the maze of symbols and shapes.

  “How about this way?” Ken said, looking up at Yuri.

  Ida, with her back still turned, glanced down at a pad on her lap where the finger trace was also appearing. “Looks good to me.”

  “No, no,” Yuri said. “Go to the left of that outcrop and we’ll lose sight of the valley. Put up the right view and you’ll see.”

  Ken touched a couple of controls and a silhouette appeared of an outline of rock with a mountainous background. “I see. We’ll go to the right of it then.”

  “Route locked in,” Ida said. “I’m ready whenever you two are.”

  “We’re going to take at least three trips to move all this gear,” Colin said, looking around.

  Yuri and Ken picked up their weighty backpacks and started out in the specified direction. Pulling the hoods of their Ranger suits over their heads, then a quick touch of the controls on their forearms, they vanished into the background with only an occasional ripple in the scenery to indicate their position.

  “Left five degrees,” Ida said over the communication system when they were out of sight.

  “Got something on infra red,” Ken said ten minutes into the patrol. “Someone came this way a few days ago, no established path. Just found a footprint, it was a single female.”

  “There’s plenty of game around,” Colin said. “Does it look like she was hunting?”

  “Affirmative, it’s an erratic, hesitating track, consistent with hunting.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re meat eaters,” Colin said. “It could be some sort of pest control. Any evidence of a weapon?”

  “Negative, no residual static
from a pulse weapon. No residual chemicals from a firearm. She either carried a mechanical weapon or didn’t discharge it in this area.”

  “Forget the tracks,” Colin said. “We can follow them and find out about weapons after the camp’s moved. Any difference in the vegetation?”

  “Same as back there,” Yuri said. “Mostly eucalyptus, ferns, oak and a tree that I think is acacia.”

  * * *

  In the early afternoon the foursome rested, concealed in a rocky outcrop overlooking the path they detected.

  “Sound dampers activated,” Ida said. “You can talk now.”

  “Darn sloppy hunters,” Colin said as he examined the spear in his hand. “My father used to bow hunt and he was a fanatic about retrieving his arrows. A spear would be more valuable. Where did you find this?”

  “Sticking in a tree,” Yuri replied.

  “Hidden by leaves?”

  “No, right out in the open.”

  “Could it be some sort of hunting custom here?” Ken said. “Use a spear only once?”

  Colin shook his head. “No, it’s too well made; it’s obviously meant to be reused, and it’s already been used more than once. The scrapes down the side indicate that it’s traveled through thick underbrush.”

  “Maybe the hunter just got sick of it,” Ida said. “Missed too many times and decided it was defective.”

  “That seems to be the only answer.” Colin placed the spear carefully on a rock next to him. “Time to put out the sniffer Ida. I suggest on that sharp turn in the track. That way they’ll be more or less facing it before they make a left turn. We’ll get a better breath sample that way.”

  Ida reached over to gather her equipment. “Do you want a second one by the side of the track at butt level?”

  Colin shook his head. “No, getting a fart sample is too unreliable. One never knows where and when someone’s going to cut one. The breath sample will give us a good enough indication of their diet.”

  Colin and Yuri watched as the other two made their way down to the path. The sniffer was placed, concealed in a bush, at face level. Once done, the two started back up the gentle, bushy slope.

  “Shit,” Yuri said. “Someone’s coming from the left. Our instruments must have a blind spot.”

  “Freeze you two,” Colin commanded. “Damn, I should’ve tested for that before sending someone out.”

  The ripple of the two ranger suits stopped as they sank into the cover of the low bushes.

  The man, robed to the ankles, walked slowly along the trail toward the sniffer. At a distance of five meters he stopped and looked up in the direction of the hidden Rangers while giving one of the now familiar grunting sounds.

  “Is anyone there?” he asked as he seemed to sniff the air.

  After another thirty seconds, he shrugged and continued along the path.

  “Well, they speak English,” Yuri said under the cover of the sound dampers.

  Ida reappeared a few minutes later. “Shit,” she said, “how did he know someone was there?”

  “No idea,” Colin said as he watched a replay of the event on a small screen. “He looked straight at you two, but I don’t know anyone that has the ability to see a stationary Ranger suit.”

  “Try the infrared,” Ken said as he joined them.

  Colin backed up the image and the screen changed to various shades of color.

  “There,” Ida said and Colin froze the screen. “That’s where he thought he saw someone.”

  Colin examined the image. “His IR patterns don’t indicate a fear reaction. What do you all think?”

  Yuri nodded. “Agreed, it looks more like just a mild curiosity.”

  Colin ran the recording further. “The IR pattern seems to mellow out when he decided to move on. Opinions?”

  Ken shrugged. “Looks to me that he decided he was mistaken about what he saw or heard and walked on.”

  Colin switched the monitor back to video. “Or smelled,” he said. “Look, right here, he seems to sniff the air.”

  “Ken cut one,” Yuri said as he shoved Ken’s shoulder. “He smelled one of his farts.”

  “Bullshit,” Ken said. “You know that the suits filter all that out.”

  “Well yours are so bad they melt their way through.”

  “Whatever it was,” Colin said, “it’s obvious that he decided he was mistaken. I believe we’re still undetected.”

  “The sniffer,” Ida said as she jumped to an instrument. “It reads bread, onion, tomato and beef.”

  “Well,” Colin said. “Shall we go over what we now know about them?”

  “They’re not vegetarians,” Ken said. “That pleases me because I don’t want to have to do without a steak, medium rare.”

  “Medium well,” Ida said as she examined the sniffer’s results further.

  “They speak English,” Colin said, “and they have a relaxed lifestyle. They can’t be at war, or have any fear of a wild animal attack. His reaction to a suspected presence told us that.”

  “His clothes too,” Yuri said. “If he was ready for a fight or flight situation he’d have pants or bare legs, not a robe that’d tangle his legs if he had to run.”

  Colin smiled. “Quite encouraging. It’s better than worrying about getting a spear up the kazoo the moment we stepped out to say ‘hi.’ Before we discuss this further, shall we shift our instruments to take care of that blind spot?”

  * * *

  Toward evening the bidirectional travel restarted. Yuri and Ida concentrated their instruments on three coming from the right while the other two Rangers took an individual on the left.

  “Their fields are that way,” Ida said. “These three are carrying what appear to be onions in baskets on their backs.”

  “On their backs?” Colin said. “Well it’s obvious that they don’t have any pack animals.”

  “We’ll be close enough to get a full conversation when the group passes the single,” Yuri said. “They should pass each other about a hundred meters from us.”

  “If they do talk to each other at all,” Ken said. “Remember, we didn’t get any conversation from the other location.”

  “Back there, no two groups passed each other while within range,” Ida said. “Here they will. Without a link with the systems on Pellan we’re limited.”

  The group waited while observing and noting the rough woven robes and crude wicker baskets of the carriers. They watched as the individual passed fifty meters from their position and continued up the path.

  “Ho, Kelsin,” called the single walker as he drew close to the others.

  Yuri jumped to adjust their medium range listening devices to get a clearer sound.

  “Ho Kelsin, Marlo, Tomini and Gant,” replied one of the three.

  “Marlo, how is work on the sun start field.”

  “Slow,” Marlo replied.

  “Interesting,” Ida said. “They seem to announce their own name as a greeting.”

  “Note that,” Colin commanded and Ida made an entry on the pad on her lap.

  “Why slow?” Kelsin asked.

  “A lot of low weed with thick roots. We couldn’t see them from the sun end field. The roots are hell to cut through with our hoes.”

  “Damn,” Kelsin said. “Looks like I’m in for a hard cool’s labor.”

  “Yes,” another of the three said. “Just like we had a hard warm’s work. Harvest only lasts another ten warms, it’ll be over soon.”

  “You mean ten cools. You warm workers think you do most of the work.”

  The three laughed at the simple joke.

  “Well, look at this,” said one of the three as he turned and tilted the top of his basket in Kelsin’s direction. “And I dug this much through all that weed root.”

  “I saw it, I saw it,” Kelsin said. “Your basket’s just as full as it was last sun end. The weed can’t be slowing you too much.”

  “Another observation,” Yuri said while looking through a visual scanner. “While tal
king, they rarely make eye contact. They seem to look past one another.”

  Ida leaned over to view another instrument. “Confirmed by computer analysis of the visual.”

  “That’s good to know,” Colin said. “We don’t want to insult anyone by looking them in the eyes while we talk.”

  The conversation ended and the workers continued on their way. The Rangers sat back to analyze what they had learned.

  “Some of them work at night by the sound of things,” Ken said.

  “Well, that’s obvious,” Colin said. “Warm must mean day and cool must mean night. But if that’s so, then why didn’t we see any lights? Do they do it by feel?”

  “Possibly a shielded lamp,” Ida said. “That’d show up on our limited field equipment as an enclosed cooking fire, which they did detect.”

  “But the small numbers of them don’t make sense,” Colin said.

  “Ah!” Yuri said, raising a hand. “The day workers dig up the onions and the night workers clean them and cut the leaves off.”

  “Nope,” Colin said. “That guy Kelsin’s a night worker. He seemed a little disconcerted when the other guy told him about the difficulties digging up the onions. That means he digs for them too.”

  “They do seem to be a simple, friendly lot,” Ida said. “The infra-red reads that they’re all quite placid and easygoing.”

  “At the moment,” Ken said. “Voice analysis reads that they could be prone to a normal amount of violence. So how about it boss? Do we step out and say ‘hi there’?”

  “Anything on their accents?” Yuri said.

  “No,” Ida said. “Our voice analysis can’t pick an Old Earth region.” She turned to Colin. “Have you heard anything like it?”

  “Not specifically,” Colin said. “Standard American Midwest, but occasionally I hear a slight touch of a Southern American drawl, possibly Tennessee, but I’m probably wrong.”

  “We need more sampling,” Ida said.

  Colin smiled. “It seems that at least eighty percent of our concerns before coming here are nonexistent. They aren’t cannibalistic warriors that fight everything that gets in their way. They speak a language we all understand, and they seem friendly. But I’d like to give it a couple more days’ observation before we introduce ourselves. I’d like to know more about customs so we don’t inadvertently insult people.”