Victim of Circumstance (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 3)

by Robert F Hays

  “But, in modern terms, I’m proficient at nothing.”

  “But, you can choose those who are,” Redmond stated enunciating each word. “We have the knowledge and technology to assist you.”

  “What, the academics? I still can’t see how the educated can possibly support me as a dictator.”

  “It’s not a matter of that. It’s fear of the alternatives. The people’re looking for a leader. They’re looking for someone to make the decisions for them. They look on the democratic system as the cause of their problems, it invariably happens at times like this.”

  “Ah ha, so you want a Hitler you can control.”

  “Something like that,” Redmond said with a half smile. “Look at it this way, if you were in power and the people wanted, and were ready for popular rule again, what would you do?”

  “Throw it back at them, because I don’t want it.”

  “Exactly,” Redmond said, snapping his fingers. “That’s why the academic community will support you.”

  “Ok, but who else would support me in taking over the government?”

  “The Secret Service,” Peter said as he entered the observation deck from the forward corridor.

  “How long have you been listening, you snoop?”

  Peter threw up his arms. “Just because I am a Secret Service agent, people automatically think that I listen in on everyone’s conversations.”

  “Well you do, don’t you?”

  “That’s beside the point, but this time I only heard the last sentence.”

  “Ok then, you tell me why the Secret Service would support me.”

  “Division. The Agency is divided as to whom to support for the best. We all know what’s coming. At the moment we do more spying on factions in our own government than on the so called enemy. They know you don’t have the ability to run things yourself, but they do know that you have the intelligence to pick those who can.”

  “Then there’s the military, they respect you as a soldier,” Redmond said. “Your son’s in service when he has no real need for a career.”

  “The Generals and Admirals want me to take over?”

  “Not just the Generals,” Peter said, “the rank and file of the military. Of all the prospective contenders for power, you’re the only one that’s ever dug a foxhole and slept in it. The soldiers know you understand them.”

  “You see Jim,” Redmond said. “It’s not the power you’d have; it’s the power you’d deny others. Look on yourself as the keeper of the democratic process until better times.”

  “All I want to be is a keeper of my own business and let everyone else stick to theirs.”

  “They won’t let you,” Chris said as he walked through the lift tube door.

  “Hell, another eavesdropper,” Jim said.

  “They need someone to blame,” Chris said. “You would be an obvious target. You already know that the most common tactic to gain power by the right is fostering the hate of someone. Member Haugen has already publicly stated that the blame for our problems lies in the commercial class. He didn’t mention you by name, but if he becomes more powerful I’m sure he’ll get around to it. Just think what would happen if he was the one to seize power? You have embarrassed him in council debates too many times to let him leave you unnoticed.”

  “That’s because I have a better team of advisers than he does. You all tell me what to say.”

  “You have chosen your advisors on the basis of their ability. He chose his on the basis of a desire for power. He picked the people that’d flatter his ego and give him the confidence to do what he wants to do.”

  “But, is it a certainty that anyone would take the government?”

  “Yes,” Chris stated with conviction. “The condition it’s in can’t continue much longer.”

  “But why me?” Jim pleaded.

  “Because you have always been a success,” Redmond said.

  “Success? People have made me a success.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about back on Earth. What were you there?”

  “Just an Army Sergeant.”

  “Were you a good one?”

  “I was the best. I was always promoted ahead of everyone and I had the respect of the troops under me.”

  “There it is,” Chris said. “You have had a successful life and you yourself recognize the fact and are proud of it. The vast majority of detrimental totalitarians have been a failure in everything they did. Their only ability was power. They craved power for their own mental equilibrium and for that reason held on no matter what. They needed it, you don’t. You know where you are and what you are. You don’t need to step on anyone for your own ego’s sake.”

  Jim exhaled heavily then turned toward the lift tube. “I’ve got to go somewhere and think. I think I’ll take the excursion craft for a spin around the moon.”

  After a few paces, Jim stopped as he realized what he had just said in the perspective of his former life on Earth. The image of casually taking a spin around the moon had him burst out laughing.

  * * *

  Jim sat on a low, rocky outcrop looking across a vast lunar landscape. Touching the controls on his left forearm, a high powered tele-meter swung down over his faceplate. It instantly focused and horizontally blurred as he moved his head from right to left. The image stopped as it caught a distant, broad footprint in the lunar dust.

  He smiled as he visually measured the size of the print. The man that made it was so encumbered with sheer bulk it was amazing that he could move even in the light lunar gravity. He mentally compared the footprint’s size with the ones he had made on the short walk to his location. They were no bigger than an army boot and his suit no thicker than a heavy set of coveralls.

  He traced the ancient boot prints back to a camera on a tripod, then into a mass of prints surrounding the base of the lunar landing module that had stood in the same position for over two thousand years.

  The flag, hanging from its pole, was pointed away from the lander base. It had been blown there by the blast of the lander as it took off and was touching the ground. It had remained in the same position since the event. There was no color in it, it was bleached white.

  Jim turned off the tele-meter and glanced over his shoulder at the two figures approaching by way of the designated access corridor. The obviously female couple strolled casually, holding hands as if in a park.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” said the taller of the two.

  “I think better here,” Jim replied to his wife.

  “Dad, can I get some moon rocks for my collection,” the shorter asked.

  “Not here Suzanne, we can go somewhere else for that,” Jim said as he turned his attention back to the ancient landing site.

  “Do you want to be alone?” asked his wife, Carol.

  “Not really, I just wanted to be here.”

  “Well, I had to bring Suzanne. After all, this place is educational. She can tell all her school friends that she was here.”

  Jim smiled and mumbled to himself. “Some show and tell.”

  “Some what?” Carol said.

  “Nothing, just an Old Earth joke.”

  “Dad, you did see this on television when it happened, didn’t you?” Suzanne asked.

  “Nope, it was before my time.” Jim glanced back again as they climbed the rock he was on and sat next to him. “So, what should I do? Become Emperor?”

  “I came up here to keep you company, not to persuade you either way.”

  “So, what did they tell you to say to me?”

  “Nothing,” Carol replied sounding slightly hurt. “You know they wouldn’t...”

  “I was just being facetious,” Jim said as he turned to look her straight in the faceplate. “I know you weren’t sent.” Jim stuck out his tongue and gave her a raspberry, a gesture he regretted as droplets of saliva clouded the view through his faceplate. He quickly tapped a control and a blast of warm air dried the mist leaving a slight residue.
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br />   “Well, as you brought it up,” Carol said. “Ever since I was a little girl I’ve always wanted to be an Empress.”

  Jim nodded and smiled. “Emperor? That’s the thing I object to. It sounds sort of... ah... pretentious. I would prefer... leader, or something like that.”

  “That sounds like a euphemism.” Carol paused for a moment. Jim saw her lips move, but no sound came through the communication system. “You will be the absolute authority of a major political unit,” she continued, “containing a territory of great extent, or a number of territories and peoples, and that’s an Empire, making you an Emperor.” Carol giggled. “It’s nice having a dictionary whisper in your ear when you’re trying to make a point.”

  Jim tapped the computer private control on his arm. “Computer, define the word Emperor.”

  “Emperor,” the computer replied. “The sovereign, or supreme monarch of an Empire…”

  He tapped the control again and shook his head. “Well, it’s nice for some people.”

  “The word carries the authority we’re going to need if we’re going to get ourselves out of the present situation. You know that they’ve already started food rationing on at least eight planets.”

  “Twelve,” Jim corrected, “and it’s not due to a shortage, it’s due to stupidity. I can’t ship my raspberries to where they’re needed because of the screwed up bureaucracy at the department of transport. They keep telling me it’s the distribution quotas they worked out. But, I have warehouses full of them on New Hope and not a single berry on Vandrare. Those idiots don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “Maybe they do,” Carol said. “You know that shortages like that anger people enough to make them support any system that’ll correct it.”

  Jim thought for a moment. “You’re telling me that they’re intentionally screwing things up as a base for power? It’s all some sort of plot? The bureaucrats are in on this thing?”

  “Looks like it, but I don’t think that the idiots at transport and other agencies are directly involved. They were put there by the plotters because of their abilities, or lack of them. Remember the old saying: ‘Much can be accomplished with the creative use of incompetence.’”

  “So, you’re saying that the potential Hitlers are intentionally screwing things up to prepare for their take over.”

  “That’s Chris’ theory, and it’s supported by a dozen other sociologists. They’ve been talking in private of course; they’re scared of the consequences of a public disclosure.”

  “Consequences? Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”

  “Remember the war powers act? It’s used to suppress information that’d be detrimental to the war effort, but the law can be abused to suppress any information.”

  Jim laughed. “Looks like I’ve got to take over. But this’ll be the first time in history that a totalitarian insisted on democratic freedoms.”

  “Well, when you also take over the Bund, they’ll be used to a dictator. That Schroeder’s a real asshole. Every time I see him on the intercepted 3V broadcasts he’s always screaming about the racial superiority of the German people. The one thing I can’t understand is the leader of the Arab league, Shadid, on 3V he says very little. Why do his people follow him?”

  “He counts on an old Muslim legend about a great leader who’ll rule mankind. He doesn’t say he’s the one they refer to as the Mahdi, which means the ‘rightly guided one’; he just casually reveals the signs.”

  “Signs? What signs?”

  “He has a mole on the cheek, which we believe to have been put there by a cosmetic surgeon. He has a part between the front teeth, which we think is the results of dental work. There’re other prophecies about this coming messiah. I can’t remember them just now, but I know he surreptitiously displays them and counts on the people noticing.”

  “And people believe this?”

  “They have in the past. The last one was on Earth. His name was Muhammad Abu Babu Dabu something.” Jim tapped a control on his sleeve before continuing. “Computer, information. The name of a man in the... eighteen... ah... late eighteen hundreds CE, also known as the Mahdi?”

  “Muhammad Ahmad Ibn As-Sayyid Abd Allah,” replied the computer.

  “See, I almost got it,” Jim said with a smirk.

  Suzanne thumped him on the upper arm with a gloved fist. “Daaad, not even close.”

  “Listen,” Jim said, turning to Suzanne. “If the female members of this family keep hitting me the way they all do, when I’m Emperor, I’ll lock you all up in a dungeon or something.”

  “You’d lock up the Empress?” Carol said on mock horror.

  “It’s been done many times before.”

  Suzanne thumped Jim on the arm a second time. “What’s a dungeon?”

  Chapter 6

  “You’re Michael Young, are you not?” asked the eighteen year old across the table. “The rich kid from Casia.”

  Michael shrugged. “I guess I am.”

  “What’s it like living in a big house with hundreds of autoserves?”

  “All right, I guess.”

  “We only have two autoserves at my house; my father works for a living. Must be nice to buy anything you want, when you want.”

  Michael shrugged again. “My father usually makes us work for anything we get.”

  “Work?” exclaimed the boy in a sneering laugh. “You do not know what work is. Neither does your rich father. My father has to put in a six hour day, four days a local week, that’s a thirty hour standard week. Your rich family does not know anything about that, do they?”

  “Don’t pay attention to him,” Kevin said. He sat to Michael’s left. “Yack brain there is always being an asshole.”

  “You shut up,” the boy snapped. “I’m talking to the rich kid here. Well,” the boy said, again looking Michael up and down, “does your family ever work?”

  “My father spent fifteen years in the army on Earth. He went to work at six and got off at four thirty. That’s a ten and a half hour day, five day week. That’s a fifty two and a half hour week.”

  “Yes, but what’s that in time per standard week,” the boy said sarcastically. “Planets are different do you not know. It probably turns out to a lot less in standard time.”

  “It was on Old Earth,” Michael said.

  Kevin and the girl to Michael’s right started to giggle. The boy across the table started to laugh as well.

  “See, even your friends think you’re an idiot. Do you not know the difference between planetary days and standard days?”

  “Yes,” Michael said as the two either side of him laughed even louder. “Earth had standard days.”

  “Listen hunk breath,” the boy said with a sneer. “No planet has standard days. They’re based on...”

  The boy stopped mid-sentence and his face dropped.

  “Based on Old Earth days,” Michael said. “That’s where we lived, Old Earth.”

  The boy’s expression tightened to one of rage. He stood, picked up an empty plastic cup and flung it at Michael. The cup glanced off his left shoulder and continued on to strike the girl behind him. She swung around infuriated then froze as she saw who had thrown it.

  “Yack you,” the boy said as he climbed back over the bench seat. “You think you’re smart. We’ll see about that.”

  Michael and his two friends watched his back as he stormed out of the dining hall. “I lived on Old Earth,” Michael said. “An Old Earth day is a standard day.”

  “He was here last year,” Kevin said as the boy exited the door. “He was like that then and seems to be worse this year. He’s got a thing about being government sponsored. His family doesn’t earn enough to send him. He always picks on kids whose families have money.”

  Michael pushed a hot dog around his plate with a fork. “What’s his name?”

  “David Doherty,” the girl said. “His family escaped New Dublin in the Gaelic federation five years ago. They were being persecuted by the Gaelic peopl
e.”

  “Why? His name sounds Irish.”

  “His mother’s Russian and you’ve seen those 3V documentaries about where mixed families are being forced to live. Those places they call ghettos, with the tiny little houses.”

  “Tiny houses?” Michael exclaimed with a laugh. “They’re twice the size of the last house we lived in on Earth. Most of the people in our area lived in apartments.”

  The young girl screwed up her face in disgust. “Oh yes, I forgot about that. I went through a museum recreation of one. How could anyone live like that? It’s barbaric living in a little box with someone else living on the other side of the wall. I also went through what they called a house which wasn’t much better. You could actually talk to your next door neighbor while sitting on the front porch. I couldn’t stand that much lack of privacy. Were they very poor people? Was there a big depression at that time?”

  “No,” Michael said, trying to conceal a smirk as he glanced at Tara. She was from a lower middle class family on Vandrare. “In the cities quite wealthy people lived in apartments.”

  “My father told me about that,” Kevin said. “He said it’s all made up. He said that no one could live that way and stay sane. He said that those recreations were invented to shock people.”

  “Shock people?”

  “They were made that way to make us feel that we’re not so bad off and keep us quiet about the things getting worse.”

  “No,” Michael said. “I can tell you, they’re quite real.”

  “How many autoserves did you have on Old Earth?” Tara said.

  “None, they weren’t invented then.”

  “None?” Tara said in shock. “What cleaned the house?”

  “Mom and Dad did. They used a thing called a vacuum cleaner.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Kevin said. “They physically did it themselves?”

  “Yep,” Michael replied. “Just like we do here.”

  “Yes, but here we’re in an adventure camp. You’re supposed to do rugged things like that. But home is where you live. I just couldn’t live like this all year round.”