by Gethsemane
Keeler admitted, “It certainly sounds like something I’d so.” She continued. “After two or three years of that, we returned to New Cleveland and I took a position teaching writing to bored undergraduates. A few years after that …”
“You are so beautiful,” Keeler burst out. It was one of the things he had always regretted not saying to her before she died. Defying his own expectations, he had fallen madly in love with her after their wedding. It had taken some time, a year or so. But he had eventually discovered that his parents’ arrangement had given him an extraordinary woman, much better than he had ever deserved or could have found on his own.
“Thank you,” she said, starting to blush again. “Oh, dear… I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what to make of this.”
“You think I’ve lost my mind.”
“I’ve thought that for years, darling,” She reached across the table and stroked his hair.
“Part of me is wondering if we should contact a Mind Doctor. I am sure your sister knows some. On the other hand, I also wonder if I could get a book out of this. A man awakens from a dream, believing his wife to be dead, and finds her alive again. Interesting premise, I wonder where the narrative goes from there.”
“So, you still write,” Keeler said.
“Not very much, it’s been a long time. In fact, I haven’t written more than a few short articles since the third book came out.”
This came as a surprise to him. “You haven’t written since the trilogy?”
“Like I said, an essay here and there… but look at me, reminding my own husband of my career. Oh, this is jolly, this is very, very jolly, indeed.” She smiled and took a sip of her
“iced tea.”
Rosalind came out of the house at that point, bearing a tray of small ham and turkey sandwiches, green lettuce, heaps of tomatoes, and boiled eggs. Another servant followed with bottles of ginger beer.
Keeler reached for one of the sandwiches and Rosalind promptly smacked his hand away. “This isn’t for you, this is for Kyte and his those vagabond friends of his. They’re down by the lake, pestering the fish, I imagine.”
Keeler frowned. “They’re for who now?”
“Kyte… and his friends.” Rosalind clucked.
“Kitey?” Keeler repeated. He didn’t remember anyone living on the estate named Kitey.
“Kai-tay,” Rosalind enunciated slowly. “Your son.”
Redfire – Gabrielle soon reappeared with large, steaming trays of extremely delicious food.
The two Redfires and the Halo Jordan dug into their plates, all the while complimenting on how wonderful the food was.
The clouds outside the diner never moved. Redfire A had become aware of that as he sat and listened to his counterpart, the Other Redfire B, explain the details of his captivity aboard the alien mother-ship.
“When I came to, I felt like hell. My head was pounding, my joints ached. I soon discovered puncture wounds in my arms, groin, and at the back of my neck. Apparently, my captors had extracted some of my blood, spinal fluid, and other bodily humors for examination. I found myself in a kind of cell, oblong in shape, about a meter wide, not much long enough for me to lie flat in, nor high enough for me to stand up. The floor was padded, and I supposed I was meant to sleep on it. It was dark, but a dim light came from the front of the cell, which was covered with a metal mesh in a diamond pattern. It was razor sharp, and I cut myself quite badly when I tested it.
“I carefully inspected the confines of my cell once, twice, a third time, and I determined that escape was impossible. I crawled over to the front, where the metal mesh was, and I called out ‘Halo, are you there?’
“And someone answered me, ‘I am not Halo, but I am here.’
“’Who are you?’ I called out.
“’I am Corvus of Aurelia,’ the voice answered. “’I am an Ace of Wands in the ranks of Lucifer, under the Heirophant of the Arcana.’
“’Are you our guard?’ I asked.
“I could hear him laughing in reply. ‘I am not your guard. I am imprisoned like you are.’
“I asked him if we were on an Aurelian ship, and he said we weren’t. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. I thought – neg, neg. I was fairly certain, that this was a trick of some kind.
“The Aurelian kept talking, ‘I am of the second generation to be born on the Megasphere. My human forebears lived on a colony called Park, before we were liberated from our superstition and savagery by Aurelia.’
“At this point I interrupted. ‘Spare me your propaganda, I’ve seen what the Aurelian Empire does. I saw how Medea colony was wiped out. I saw the attack on Bodicea. I saw how the civilization on Hearth was destroyed. I saw Coriolos…’”
“The Aurelian said, ‘The Aurelians only wish to give humans lives of comfort and happiness, while preparing the way for an evolution into a higher state of being.’ He also said something about humans having no business colonizing worlds that belonged to other species.
“I told him that Bodicea had been bombed from space with mass drivers and millions had been killed. He told me if the Arcana had willed it to be so, then there must have been simply no other way to wipe the slate of such a thoroughly corrupt and misguided civilization.
“’The human race can only be allowed to make so many bad choices before someone has to intervene,’ the Aurelian said. ‘We will make things better for all of you.’
“I told him, ‘Well, I would love to visit your megasphere and see just how much better it is. Oh, but, too bad, we passed by the wreckage of your megasphere in the outer system.’
“’A billion lives senselessly ended,’ the Aurelian said. ‘We came in peace to offer the humans of this system unity, purpose and comfort. And we are repaid in violence.’
“’Correction,’ I said. ‘You came to force the humans in this system to live under Aurelian rule, and to serve Aurelian purpose.’
At that point, Redfire A interrupted. “Could we, maybe, skip ahead to the part where you escape, or to the part where you die? No offense, but, can guess that this argument about politics went on for a while, and there are things I really must know.” Halo Jordan dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Maybe I should take it from here.” Keeler — “Since when do I have a son,” Keeler demanded when Rosalind had disappeared down the path. “When did that happen?”
“You’ve had a son for almost thirteen years,” Delia replied. “As for when that
happened, add nine months and you’ll get the answer.”
“Good Lord,” Keeler downed his drink in one long swallow.
“We should continue this conversation in the library,” Delia suggested. Keeler remembered that she had never liked spending too long in the sun. She rose from the table and turned toward the house, knowing he would follow her.
The library was on the opposite side of the house, and one more floor down from the sun porch, being mostly underground except for a high row of windows. The walls were fieldstones up to about shoulder level before giving way to clean, geometrical forms in brown hardwood.
The shelves the lined three of the walls were made of the same hardwood, and lined with books, an earlier Keeler had had to re-invent paper in order to make this possible.
Three large desks were set into one wall, each with a large holographic screen in front of it.
This was where the real information was exchanged. The books were mostly decorative.
There was a fireplace on one wall with three large couches in front of it. Delia sat down on one of the large, soft leather couches. Keeler preferred to stand. He had always hated this room.
“So, I have a son,” he repeated. “Any more kids I should know about?”
“I only had the one,” she answered. “Beyond that, I can not say.” Keeler rubbed his chin. “What other fresh hells await me in this bizarro version of my life?”
“I can’t really say,” she replied, crossing her legs. “To me, the notion of you flying around the galaxy on
a spaceship is quite bizarro. You don’t even like to travel to Kandor.” Keeler pointed to one of the leather-bound volumes. “That book is wrong; The Myth of the Tarmigans. The Tarmigans are not a myth. I’ve seen their handiwork. Allbeing, how could I have been so arrogant. What other creature from our mythology are real? The Klingons? The Goa’uld? The Germans?”
He took a deep breath and turned to her. “All right, tell me. What have I been doing for the last nine years?”
“You’ve been the Couch of the Histories Department.”
“The ‘Couch?’”
“You said it was more comfortable than a chair,” she explained.
“Was I ever Chancellor?”
“Za, from 7288 to 7292. You quit because you got bored.” Keeler shrugged. “That certainly sounds like something I would do.” So, in this reality, he had quit his post as Chancellor the same year he had become Prime Commander of Pegasus in his own reality. He wondered what that could mean.
“What else have I done?” he asked.
“Your tenure as the chief of the Histories Department has been fairly successful. You got some of the deadwood transferred to other universities. You hired some exciting new people. You’ve recently secured funding to renovate the Histories Building and the Hall of Antiquities.”
“Am I a respected figure in the academic community?” Delia smiled. “For the most part.”
“Then I have become that which I hate,” Keeler grumbled. There was a knock at the library door. “Who is it?” Keeler barked.
Tolkien Xerox cracked open the door and poked his head in, looking white and timid.
“Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?” Keeler demanded.
Someone pushed Xerox aside and flung the door open. And Keeler gaped when he saw who it was, because it was him. It was his doppelganger, looking much the same except instead of a bathrobe, he was dressed in a frumpish suit with leather patches on the elbows.
The newcomer scowled, paused for a second, then pointed an accusing finger at Delia.
“Aha! I caught you! Just as I suspected, you have been cheating on me… with me!” Chapter 08
Gethsemane – A trio of Aves on Y-formation flew low over the semi-arid landscape in a southwest sector of the northern hemisphere, casting bird-like shadows on the dried grass and dehydrated trees. Two small, shallow rivers cut through this land of weathered brown-red mesas emerging from plains of yellow-gray sands. Between them was a valley more fertile than the surrounding wilderness, but not much more, giving life only to occasional stands of stumpy trees and fields of hardy desert grasses.
Phoenix led the flight, and the other two Aves were Quentin and Zeus. Approaching the outpost at the far end of the valley, they banked and made for an old dirt runway scraped from the hardpan. The runway was set eight kilometers from a set of buildings older, squarer, and much more weathered than the buildings at the Gateway complex. Ten windmills stood tall over the complex, turning in the constant desert wind. The place was surrounded by triple fencing and razor wire, angled both toward and away from the camp, to keep anyone from getting in or out.
They called this place Fort Abaddon.
Dust devils swarmed as the Aves landing thrusters blasted dirt from the ground and the ships settled onto the hard-baked ground.
The hatch on the underside of Phoenix slid open. Trajan Lear, Johnny Rook, and Max Jordan emerged blinking into the fierce afternoon sunlight, and surveyed the badlands around them, and the weathered collection of gray-brown buildings that made up the old fort. “How old is this place?” Max Jordan wondered aloud.
Rook shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s only going to get five days older.” He adjusted his Spex. “There’s life signs all right. Over there.” He gestured toward the barracks.
Other rescue teams from the other Aves emerged, each one a team of five, two warfighters, two technicians, and a medic. The pilots of the other ships remained inside their ships, so Trajan Lear led the teams toward the fort complex.
“What a hellhole,” Rook observed.
Max Jordan shrugged. “EdenWorld was worse. 255 Crux was worse. I wouldn’t want to live here, but…”
There didn’t seem to be anything coming after the word “but,” so Rook grimly noted, “I wouldn’t want to die here either.”
The voice of Warfighter Silvertip, flanking them to the east, came across the COM Link.
“Someone’s coming.”
A figure riding a very large motorcycle approached them from the direction of the barracks, kicking up a trail of dust. In short order, the motorcycle and its rider caught up to them, and parked directly in their path, about twenty meters ahread.
She was clad in leather and filled out the leather in a female way. A patch covered one eye, and her dark hair was drawn back into a ponytail. She greeted the Pegasus landing crew in the customary fashion… by pointing a pair of weapons at them and demanding,
“Who the Hell are you?”
Johnny Rook calmly raised his arms as though surrendering, and he faced the mad woman with the double-barreled kinetic energy weapons. “Warfighter Specialist First Rank Johnny Rook of the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus. We’ve come to rescue you.”
“Rescue us,” she snorted. “What makes you think we need to be rescued?”
“Your planet is about to be destroyed. We have come to evacuate you, to take you to safety. I’m Johnny Rook.” He extended a hand and smiled, the kind of handsome smile that had always worked so well with the women on Pegasus.
The woman wasn’t buying it. “Are you from the Authority?”
“Neg,” Rook answered. “We’re from another planet.”
“A Commonwealth colony world?” she asked.
“Sort of,” Rook answered.
She frowned and looked past where he stood to where the Aves were parked.
“How many kids do you have?” Rook asked.
She squinted at him very suspiciously, and finally answered, “Never you mind. How did you find us?”
“It was a man in your Authority, a man named Oberth who told us we could find children in need of rescue here,” Rook explained.
The woman would not put down her weapon, but the name Oberth seemed to strike a chord with her.
“Does the Authority know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Not really, neg,” Rook admitted.
This seemed to reassure her. “Of course, they probably were against it. So, where are you going to take us?”
“Off this planet before it explodes,” Rook answered.
She waved one of her weapons at the Aves. “All my kids won’t fit in those ships.” Rook patiently explained. “We have a larger ship in orbit capable of evacuating everyone left this planet. These ships are here to shuttle your kids up to our big ship. I can show you pictures, I can even give you a ride, if you want to see the ship, but we can’t be wasting time here. Your planet’s going to be smashed to rubble in about five days.”
“Supposing you are space people,” she asked. “How do I know you’re not going to take my kids off into some kind of slavery, or something worse than that?”
“There’s not much worse than being on a planet when it explodes,” Trajan Lear added in. “Trust me on that.”
“I swore to protect these kids,” the woman insisted.
“You’re not protecting them, you’re dooming them,” Trajan Lear snapped back.
“Unless you let us evacuate them to safety.”
Johnny Rook moved slowly a little closer to the woman. “We’ve come here to save them, save you, you have to believe us. We only have five days; five days to save anybody we can off this planet. I don’t know what it would take to convince you of our good intentions.” She glared at them, unimpressed.
Max Jordan cleared his throat and spoke up. “No offense, ma’am… but we didn’t have to ask. Shoot me with your gun, if you want. I have a shield. It won’t hurt me. And after you fire, one of these guys will drop you. Guarante
ed. There’s sixteen of us and only one of you. Believe me; we don’t need your permission.”
She leveled her weapon at Max Jordan. Her finger twitched on the trigger. Rook and Trajan Lear tensed. Max had not entirely been accurate about the shields. They did not have full tactical shields, and there was no way to know the limited shields they had brought would be effective against the woman’s weapon. Max didn’t flinch, but stared her down, daring her to fire.
Keeping her weapon leveled at Max Jordan’s head, she hissed, “We have shelters all over the place, and you won’t find them without me.”
“I think we could find most of them,” Max Jordan answered. “In that big building straight behind you, I’m reading 432 bio-signs. There’s another eighty in the side building to the south. There’s an underground section with 184 bio-signs just under the main building. Do you want me to go on?”
Slowly she lowered her weapons back into their holsters. “Well, since I don’t have a choice then, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“A wise decision,” Max Jordan said.
“What’s your name?” Rook asked her.
The woman took a long time before she answered. “Miranda.”
“How many children are there here?” Rook asked her.
“I don’t keep count,” she answered. “Somewhere around two thousand.” Rook looked back toward the Aves. Packed to the walls, they could hold two hundred kids each. “We’re going to need more ships.”
“Why don’t you take us to the camp so we can start getting the kids out of here,” Trajan Lear said.
Miranda very reluctantly nodded.
“You made a good choice,” Max Jordan said to the woman. “Two thousand kids are going to be alive in six days because of it.”
Pegasus – Outer Bridge – Anaconda Rook was giving Eliza Jane Change the latest update on the first full day of evacuation operations. “Aves George and Hector are inbound with 163 refugees. The James group is preparing to evacuate a group of 267, that’s not a final count. Aves Bernard and Andrew just departed with the first 206 out of 487 refugees from a river encampment.”