The rest of the meal was spent in pleasant conversation. They knew much and were interesting story tellers. They were going to take Thelma's world by storm.
That afternoon, they, along with the escorted prisoners and the Diplomatic Legations left for Thelma's time and space. They carried with them a dispatch to Thelma suggesting she go into the Real Estate Business. She had land. I would be sending her customers. I knew she would appreciate that.
Then I instructed the DO to set sail for Sante Fe, New Mexico, 21 September, 1854. We were going to invite a Marshall Dillard AKA Pierre La Fuette to the party.
OPERATIONAL AREA EARLY (ONE CONTINENT) EARTH
Chapter One
Tildore Secallo AKA Rafe Berger
The position seemed familiar. I was stretched out on a Med Deck operating table. But why was I here? Some accident occurred, some mental malfunction, what? Had somebody attacked and overpowered us? I couldn't see, couldn't move. I could hear various indistinct voices. Then Paula spoke in my mind and I felt relieved to find myself in my universe and among friends.
I'M GOING TO SPEAK IN YOUR MIND LIKE I ALWAYS DID. YOU CAN'T TALK YET. JUST FORM YOUR THOUGHTS AND I'LL HEAR THEM. TRY NOW.
I thought, 'There must have been a terrible accident, or battle, to have me so torn up.'
THERE WAS NEITHER. DO YOU REMEMBER THELMA ASKING FOR VOLUNTEERS?
'Yes, I volunteered.'
THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HERE. YOU'LL RECALL YOUR CONVERSATION WITH ADAM AND EVE, ABOUT HOW HUMANS WERE NOT ABLE TO FIGHT AGAINST THE ANNU KI AND WIN BECAUSE HUMANS WERE SO WEAK.
'Yes.'
YOU ARE NOT WEAK ANYMORE. THERE WAS NO WAY TO ESCAPE THE TRUTH OF YOUR CONDITION SO THE DECISION WAS MADE TO CHANGE. IF WE WERE TO OVERCOME, THE BODY STRUCTURE HAD TO BE MADE AS GOOD, OR BETTER, THAN THE ANNU KI. WE SPEEDED UP EVOLUTION. THE BODY WE DEVELOPED WOULD BE HUMAN IN A TRILLION YEARS OR SO. WE DO NOT HAVE, A TRILLION YEARS TO SQUANDER SO WE DID IT NOW. HENCE, THE CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS.
'Just tell me what exactly was done. I'm sure that is no worse than my speeding imagination.'
PROBABLY NOT, IN SHORT YOU ARE ADAM NOW. YES, WITH A BULB IN YOUR HEAD. YOU'RE AN IMPROVED ADAM, WHERE HE WILL BE IN A MILLION YEARS OR SO. YOU'RE NINE FEET TALL. YOU WEIGH 450 POUNDS. YOU HAVE TWO COMPLETE SETS OF ORGANS, PLUS TWO EXTRA HEARTS AND KIDNEYS. YOUR BODY MASS IS THIRTY PERCENT WATER NOW, INSTEAD OF THE SEVENTY PERCENT OF YOUR LAST BODY. YOUR STRENGTH IS FIFTEEN TIMES EARTH GRAVITY NORM REQUIREMENT. YOU CAN INCREASE THAT BY EXERCISE IF YOU WANT. NO, YOU'RE NOT SOME MONSTER, OR MAYBE I SHOULD SAY THERE WILL BE A 100,000 OF YOU, EVENLY SPLIT BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN. YOUR BODY'S MANNERISMS WILL ADJUST TO REFLECT THE INDIVIDUALS PERSONALITY, LIKE ALL REBORN.
'I know now what M.Verdai went through. Is she here?'
NOT YET, SHE MAY NOT EVER BE. A DECISION HAS NOT BEEN MADE, IF SHE CAN SURVIVE ANOTHER SPLIT. SHE AND RAFE WILL GO ON AS PLANNED.
'I take it I am not Rafe anymore. I sure feel like him. Am I still married to Thelma? This is all confusing. I'm sure, if you were permitting me to feel emotions, I would be angry, or unhappy, or at least feel a loss. Does this body experience emotions at all?'
THE BODY IS QUITE UNCHANGED EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING. IT REPRODUCES A BIT DIFFERENTLY, USING ARTIFICIAL WOMBS, BUT OTHER THAN THAT PROCREATION PROCEEDS AS YOU KNOW. THIS IS ALL NEW, AND WE KNOW THE PROBLEMS AREN'T ALL WORKED OUT. YES, YOU ARE STILL MARRIED TO THELMA AND SHE LOOKS FORWARD TO JOINING YOU WHEN YOUR CHILD IS BORN AND EVENTS STABILIZE. MEANWHILE NERRE' IS HERE AS YOUR SECOND IN COMMAND. YOU'VE BEEN PROMOTED TO CAPTAIN. PRESTRILLO IS HERE. THEREFORE IT WAS THOUGHT BEST THAT YOU CARRY ON AS TILDORE SECALLO. DO YOU FOLLOW THE LOGIC ON THAT?
'Yes I follow the logic. Where is here?'
HERE IS ON A SPACE STATION BUILT FOR WAR BY THE PHAETONS. I WON'T GO INTO THE DETAILS OF IT, JUST TO SAY PRESTRILLO IS AMAZED. I GET THE IMPRESSION HE'S NOT AMAZED VERY OFTEN. THE LOCATION IN SPACE AND TIME IS NOT TO BE REVEALED BEFORE I ASK YOU THIS QUESTION. DO WE PROCEED ON YOU, OR DO WE JUST FORGET IT? EVERY PERSON WHO HAS VOLUNTEERED WILL BE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION.
'And you'll get the same answer, yes, from all of them, but it's considerate of you to ask. Just proceed.'
VERY WELL, YOU WILL BE CONNECTED TO SIGHT FIRST. DO NOT BE SURPRISED AT THE SIZE OR DIMENSIONS OF THIS STATION. IT WILL BE OVERSIZED FOR EVEN YOUR NEW BODY. THE PHAETONS HAD PEOPLE GOING MAD IN THE END. THEY THOUGHT PERHAPS IT WAS FROM CRAMPED QUARTERS SO THEY MADE THE LAST STATIONS TRIPLE THE NORMAL SIZE. PLEASANT CHANGING MURALS ADORN ALL THE WALLS. THE PROBLEM WAS, PRESTRILLO THINKS, THE IL ANNU KI, EVEN BACK THEN. BUT TO CONTINUE, SPOKEN LANGUAGE WILL BE THE NEXT. YOU WILL ALSO BE TOTALLY FLUENT IN PHAETON. THEN MOBILITY WILL BE CONNECTED, WHICH WILL TAKE A BIT OF GETTING USED TO. THEN WE'LL START ON YOUR COMMUNICATIONS THROUGH THE BULB. WE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO CALL IT. THE WHOLE PROCEDURE WILL TAKE TWO DAYS. THE LEARNING TIME DELAY IS BUT A FRACTION OF WHAT YOU'RE USED TO. WHEN EVERYONE IS BORN AND BROUGHT UP TO STANDARD WE'LL INTRODUCE PURE TELEPATHY. WE DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THAT WILL TAKE TO INITIATE.
'When will I be able to talk to Prestrillo?'
IN ABOUT FIFTY HOURS.
'Thank you. It will sort out. Do what you have to.'
I stopped again to look at my face in a hall mirror. It wasn't any kind of a face to be excited about. The Med Tech had given me a small mirror and she held her hand across my forehead. I saw a square face with even features. Then she took her hand away. I had a bulb, like Adam and Eve. They didn't bother about it. I knew I would get used to it. I'd looked at my skin while I dressed. It had a bronze tone to it. Who knew why? I didn't ask. I checked for the appendages, yep. My feet going into a size 27 boot were not of any notice. Neither was my short brown hair. Paula said it would grow like my old hair. They gave me a back pack with another pair of boots and a second coverall, five sets of underwear, socks, and a toilet kit. There was no facial hair, no body hair, bred out. I didn't care. My body had long ropey muscles, lots of them. Pack on my back, I loafed along the corridor. Not much to conquer a Universe with, but I would overcome.
I was sipping an energy drink, my diet until further notice, watching moving beach murals in the Officers Mess when Prestrillo entered. He looked as he had but there was an extra certainty in his stride. I guess being the co survivor of a planetary civilization does that to a man. Hadn't done it to me yet, but…..
He said, holding his hand up to me, "Good to see you, Tildore. I know you're Rafe Berger, but maybe we can send him on vacation. Then you and I can be the Phaeton Navy for a while?"
I reached down and shook his hand, carefully. I was still in the 'getting used to' stage. "I suppose that's as good an approach as anything. Do you go by anything but Captain Prestrillo?"
"You've been promoted I heard, Captain, won't do to stand on ceremony. My first name is Tristrel. Back at the Academy, I was called Trist. That's good enough for me."
"My friends used to call me Tild, when I wasn't killing them, but let's not go there."
I walked over to an armchair and eased my new form down into it. Its twin sat across a small table and I waved Trist into it. "We do indeed seem to be the only ones who survived. Figure out why?"
"No Tild, I haven't. It keeps me awake nights. I'll get it eventually. Want to fill you in on what we have here." He waved his hands toward the walls. "This is almost the pinnacle of what we Phaetons accomplished. There are specialized, more complicated vessels. I'll tell you about them later. This Weapons Ball is what we have to work with. We have five here. There are another fifteen-- elsewhere-all identical. I'll describe it to you so you can get an idea of the capability. I understand your XO Nerre', don't know her last name, is next to awake so we'll leave tactics to when she gets here, saves repetition. Good with you?"
"Sensible, her last name is Walstrom, but Paula says we'll be closely linked, so we'd probably do better sticking to first names. Are you going to be in the linkup?"
"No. A decision was reached that no one was certain what the transformation would do to my memory, so Paula said, no transformation. B
ut let me tell you what we have here."
I waved him on and picked up my drink again. It wasn't bad.
"It's the basic sectioned together construction, only it's a ball inside a ball. One rotates around the other. Overall it's about fifty miles in diameter. The outer ball is about two thirds of the mass. It contains the drives, armament, the fighters etc. The inner core contains quarters and what goes along with that. It has auxiliary drives of its own and minority armament, but is primarily designed as an escape pod. The outer sections blow away. We've restarted and reprogrammed the food dispensers so there is no need for farms. We just need a supply of the basic ingredients which we carry along. We'll restock somewhere eventually. If you need to know what you're drinking I'll go into details."
"No, just tell me nothing's recycled."
"No need for that in something this size. Just pile it in, whatever it is and you're good for centuries, especially with this new storage tech. There are 1,270 presently 'function able' two person fighters. You can also control them remotely. They have rockets, Plasma Cannon, 100 Kilo Watts. It could be fitted with your disintegrators if you increase the range a bit. There are 965 twenty person armored Landing Craft. Also 125 Swift Courier Types which are all engine, two people. The original purpose was to establish a barrier around the lighter armed habitat stations."
"Do we have access to any of the standard stations?"
"I quit counting after 10,000. It boggles mine, and everyone else's mind why the manufacturing complex didn't shut down. It didn't, you know. It ran out of raw material within its programmed acquisition parameters and went into phased out storage mode. It's still there, out of phase, waiting, and good as new. With your permission I think we ought to shift it across the galaxy to Ranger HQ alongside our facilities for safety and security reasons"
"That's probably reasonable. Run it by Thelma. You figured out how this Phase Tech works?"
"Yes, it's a Negative Space fold over, a crease, if you will, results in total suspension of molecular activity. Take it away, activity resumes."
"I'll have to think about that, may make a good hiding place for a minefield."
"I don't think destruction, but I'll let you know if I stumble over anything."
A cough at the door of the room brought both of us to our feet. His hands drifted toward his pistols. I just leaned forward a bit to rend any attacker.
Nerre' said, "Why gentlemen, take a card from the deck, aces high wins the first dance."
I rushed to her and took her in my arms, never so happy to see anyone. She hugged me back and I knew she was as lost as I was. Perhaps we should save ourselves before we started on the Universe. We pulled away from each other a bit, neither wanting to let go, I said, "Nerre', I want you to meet my old acquaintance, Captain Tristrel Prestrillo, recently of the Phaeton Navy."
He said, "That's Trist to my friends, whom I hope you soon become, and Tild here neglects to mention a matter of a better part of a trillion years hence with that Navy thing."
We all had a chuckle, odd emotional bodily reaction, but not unpleasant, a gradual loosening. I let go of all of Nerre' but her hand and guided her over to my chair. She sat while I brought another chair to the table.
"Where's your drink?" I asked her.
"Finished it. Paula says there's lots of it at anything which passes for a bar. Over there in the corner, I think. Would you, Tild?"
I fetched the drink. Odd, hearing Tild, from her. But what was not odd about us? Only Prestrillo, Trist appeared the same.
I asked, "Trist, at what level of readiness are we operating?"
"None. We're just maintaining position half way out to Pluto. Lots of space out here. Nobody will stumble across us."
"Please, excuse me. I'm going to talk to Paula." I shut my eyes.
'Paula.'
YES.
'I would issue this order myself, but I don't know how. So, please forward this to the proper stations. I want us on Blue Alert, the highest alert status possible short of imminent incoming missiles. Secondly I want a mine field out, all around us, ten miles deep, capable of stopping light speed time skipping missiles. Thirdly, I want everyone regressed a trillion years. I don't want to do a deep time drop and have a bunch of frogs at the secondary controls. Fourth, I want listening posts out fifty years in each direction, from our present time placement. That's for starters. Let's be the professionals we are.'
THAT WILL TAKE ABOUT FIVE MINUTES.
'Let's hope we have five minutes.'
"I'm back, folks. You'll be experiencing some shifts. Paula will fill you in. Trist, you said we have fifteen more of these stations, ready to go?"
"Yes, they're at this relativity to the sun, but spread around at three, six, and nine o'clock. They're awaiting orders."
"Can you give the command to get them here, or does Paula have to do that?"
"No, I can. How soon?"
"Now. Tell them to stop at the edge of our mine field, and form an even ball pattern around our five stations. Then spread out mine fields of their own as per my specifications. Also get us a habitat station. We may need something for refugees.
He took a Comm device out of his right breast pocket and made a few entries, "They're underway. I told them to avoid Negative space. I've been preprogramming the A-I s. They almost don't need us, other than to give direction, furnish a purpose."
Nerre' offered, "We, who have no personal Phaeton experiences, will have a long learning curve."
I said, "You never met Adam and Eve; they know, right now. They will be overjoyed to know they are truly the inspiration for a new race. It won't take as long as you think to get up to speed. The fact that I want everyone regressed a trillion years will help insofar as those past life memories will be available. It's complicated and time consuming, but don't count Paula out. She works miracles." Sardonic laughter sounded in my mind, so much for confidence in my betters.
Tina Belson wandered in. We greeted her heartily and shifted to a large circular table. She asked, "Can I linkup with Tina on ARK I?"
I said, "Our location is secret. For now, no, but keep a journal. We'll reestablish contact at a future date. Between doing your journal you're to establish unarmed combat training, regimes, harsh, strained type. We want to know what these bodies can do."
She said, "I'll get on with it. I'm always thinking how to kill people. Now that I'm as large as everyone else I'm going to have a ball."
Nerre' and I groaned, Trist said, "Count me out, absolutely out."
The Strungford twins, Heidi and Helga came in and restarted hugs all around. Staunch soldiers, sentenced to eternity in prison, and happy we knew our fellow inmates from the old days.
Heidi said, "Now we just need Jason and Ike to round us out."
NO JASON AND NO IKE. NOT THE RIGHT SKILLS
Heidi pouted, or tried to, and broke out laughing, "Well, I guess you're going to be busy Tild."
"Later on that also, but I was getting good results on ARK IV with two aides who covered me on twelve hour shifts, so you two are elected. We'll figure out the details anon."
Tina said, "We're off on an interior exploration run. We can't do much tactically before we have more bodies. We'll just go once around the ring. Trist, will you remain to catch the new arrivals?"
"Beats running, sure, enjoy. I'll send them off on your run also. We'll tour the control room when you return."
Tina waved, "Let's go. Paula said use your body."
Funny, I didn't remember that. But we followed her loose stride. I didn't feel any exertion though she set a fast pace. A ball ship has as its center the control room. Each deck outward from that has as its floor the ceiling of the deck below. A sign (read), '14' on the walls so we were 14 layers out from the control room. Each door had on it 14 and whatever the room number was, also how many rooms were along this corridor. That was so someone coming to this level knew whether to go right, or left to come to their destination sooner. I didn't remember how long this particular corridor wa
s, if I ever knew. Once through the 3D I would though. My arms swung freely. I felt no sensation of musculature, no separate ligaments, just one contained structure. I tried running backward and that was as effortless as forward. Tina sped along quicker, no strain. We slowed and walked the last four room number designations. We found Trist consulting his traveling control device when we walked back into the Mess.
"Seems we have contact four years back at 40,000 miles. Somebody sent a radar wave toward us."
"Do nothing. The static listening posts analyze the signal pattern."
Trist continued, "They're being very clever, mimicking the background wave lengths."
I said, "Just like the ANNU KI have done before. We have to conclude, for safety, that we've been discovered. I hoped we would be. Let's head for the control room, as soon as everyone refills their drinks.'
Helga asked, "Where's the beer tap?"
I said, "I'll take that up with the management. Oh; that's us."
ALL RIGHT, I'LL CHANGE THE MIXTURE. PARTY ANIMALS, THE LOT OF YOU.
We tried to act offended, but ended in laughter.
Trist said, "Going to be a fun cruise."
We put up a note informing any new arrivals to go for a run. When they get back, write up their life history using only 25 words. The corner of the room was an elevator and we stepped out shortly onto the control room floor. There was the central raised chair design, which I'd expected.
Greener Green II: The Balls Brigade Page 3