“I just told President Kaufield that we’ve made contact with Jesus the Christ as planned and are going to seek his counsel,” he explained to his brother with obvious frustration. “Now he’s just leaving?”
“Yes,” Thomas acknowledged with a swift nod. “I visited with him and thoroughly explored all options. He is a simple man from this time who has been affected, somehow, with an unknown energy source similar to that displayed by the David entity. He cannot help us any further unless we take him back with us. I don’t for a minute believe we are meant to do so, as that would almost certainly change the timeline.”
Adam placed his hands behind his neck, angling his elbows outward as he evaluated his brother’s assessment with great trepidation. “I realize you’re new to field work and all, but this is just your gut instinct speaking to you again,” he stated bluntly. “We came into the desert because you were convinced that Jesus could help us. We’ve spent a great deal of time locating him twice now, and after one brief conversation you’re willing to just up and let him go?” He stared at his brother with clear disapproval. “Thomas, you’re not basing this decision on anything other than intuition… that isn’t very scientific of you.”
Fika crouched down on the ground, his head lowered and whimpered slightly as he watched the two brothers argue. Somewhat surprisingly, Thomas held his ground. “I have made this decision based on the facts and reality of our situation,” he replied grimly. “Take another peek at that silver watch of yours if you don’t believe me… especially the new map on the inside of its front cover.”
“What? You mean the map of Missouri? What has that got to do with anything…”
Thomas turned and smiled wryly. “Missouri is our home, Adam. Whatever the hell we were supposed to accomplish here, your silver watch appears to believe that we have completed that task. Home would appear to be our next destination.” He chuckled irritably. “Unless you want to try building a boat in this time, recruit a crew and attempt to sail to America.”
“But we didn’t accomplish anything.” Pacing slowly back and forth, Adam tried to think the matter through. What Thomas was saying made a lot of sense. “I hate receiving ambiguous instructions, especially from this stupid metal timepiece!” he snapped angrily. “I did think it wanted us to go to Missouri in this timeframe.”
“At first I did too,” admitted Thomas. “But I think you’ll admit that there is not a lot to be found there.”
Sitting down on the rocky Earth, Adam rubbed his face wearily. “I can’t believe we’re just letting him walk away,” he said. “I can’t believe we came all this way to find him, and now we’re just letting him leave.” He looked up in time to see his brother seat himself next to him.
“At first, it was difficult for me to accept too,” agreed Thomas. “Everything fits Adam… whatever objective we were sent here to achieve has been completed. The watch is clearly guiding us toward our next destination… back home. Whether we’re supposed to actually go to our home town in rural Missouri or simply return to the Lexington is up for debate, but I definitely believe that we should return to the present day timeframe as soon as possible.”
Adam thought the matter through very carefully. “Can you even do that yet?” he asked. “I know we’ve reestablished contact with home, but can you generate the necessary transit portal?”
“With the Lexington’s help, certainly,” his brother nodded. “The coordinate specifications are the same as for the micro-wormholes. The ship will have to transit to a safe location because I need to hook our implants directly into their CAS drive again. But yes, it’s doable, as soon as we decide to go home.”
“Then let’s do this,” concluded Adam reluctantly. “No more Romans, no more mysterious Samaritans. Let’s follow our extremely vague instructions from the silver watch and go home.”
As things turned out, however, the trip home took longer than expected.
PROJECT EARTH
Pathfinder Series: Book Three
Chapter XI: By The Dawn’s Early Light
Planet Earth, southwest of Capernaum, A.D. 28
Generating the necessary energy for a transit portal proved to be a tricky process. It took Thomas almost half an hour to check in with President Kaufield to let him know that the two brothers were on their way home. He had to repeat much of his discussion with Adam in order to bring the rest of their team on board with the revised plan. Linked in with Glen, Nori and Noah along with Kaufield, he could sense the collective disappointment among them – all of them were privately hoping that more would have been accomplished than a simple history lesson. However, Nori in particular recognized the dangers that lurked in such a primitive environment, and she did not want to risk anything else happening to either man.
After verifying that the Lexington was safely away from Earth and hiding somewhere in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Thomas once again established contact with the power output from the CAS drive. This time, however, he allowed his brain implant to process half of the energy needed while Adam’s handled the rest. He had felt dizzy during his confrontation with the Samaritan, a clear indication that the implants were only capable of processing a finite amount of power without harming the bearer. Working swiftly, Thomas mentally submitted the necessary data packets needed to calculate the numbers for the brief trip home and then used his implant’s processor to open a swirling, golden orb of energy directly in front of them. Wordlessly, the two brothers glanced briefly at each other one final time and then walked steadfastly into the transit portal.
Neither brother was truly surprised when they did not end up back aboard the Lexington as planned.
The coruscating gold energy faded significantly, allowing the Roh brothers to see out of the spherical energy gateway. The familiar, surrounding rocky terrain of the mountainous desert was gone, replaced by a new scene. They were somewhere else, in a place where grass grew and trees were plentiful. Off to their right, a long series of low mountains curved off toward the horizon. The sky was blue and it appeared to be mid-day, with the sun shining down through partial cloud cover. Thomas opened his mouth to swear irritably, until he noticed the massive crowd of people surrounding the base of the nearest mountain. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands Thomas estimated quickly, and they were all milling about with their collective chanting audible even across the vast distance that separated them.
“Look!” he said suddenly, pointing toward a niche in the side of the mountain face approximately forty meters above the crowd. Their enhanced vision zoomed in on the area, where they recognized the familiar face of Jesus Christ sitting in the middle of several dozen followers. “Adam, we’ve jumped ahead by a year or two,” Thomas said excitedly. “This has to be the Sermon on the Mount near Capernaum.”
“Interesting,” Adam replied brusquely, folding his arms and staring at his younger brother. “How come we’re not home like we’re supposed to be?”
Placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Thomas laughed with amusement. “Because someone or something intercepted our transit portal and rerouted it here,” he told Adam with a proud grin. “We were meant to see this or we would be home. It’s the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, a series of sermons that will completely revolutionize the concept of organized religion.”
Adam watched curiously. “The people around him are his disciples then?” he asked curiously. “Some of them look pretty disheveled. Others appear to be at least somewhat wealthy.”
“Some of them are,” nodded Thomas eagerly. “The wealthier ones are with him primarily because he is so popular. They haven’t yet grasped the concept of his new Covenant, one of sacrifice and repentance. They’re sticking by him because they believe that he is going to somehow overthrow the Roman Empire and the Judaean religious leadership… that he is going to be the next King of Jerusalem. Truthfully, the kingdom he is building is an entirely different sort, the kind that transforms entire cultures into something better simply by encouraging them
to be better people.”
“Why doesn’t he get rid of the ambitious ones?” Adam turned to regard his brother thoughtfully.
“His death and subsequent rebirth on the third day will finally convince them. We are witnessing an astonishing piece of history… one man, without the aid of modern technology is building the foundations of a faith in compassion and a moral lifestyle that will last all the way up to the day we left. It’s incredible to behold!”
“I have to admit, I’ve never seen anyone draw that kind of crowd in our time,” admitted Adam reluctantly. “Just look at all of those people Thomas! They can’t all live around here… they must have come from all over the countryside just to hear him speak.”
“Only the people in front, no doubt, can hear him speaking. They must then pass on the message to those who stand behind them. It’s an excellent test model for what is about to happen globally.”
Working steadily with his eye HUD, Thomas submitted a series of commands to his implant, requesting that additional visible light be drained from the top hemisphere of the portal surrounding them. He wanted to access the stars in the sky for time and positional references, a task that was already difficult in such bright sunlight. Fortunately, the detection system that was a part of the technology in his head was capable of recognizing all electromagnetic emissions, not just the visible ones. Locking on to stars he could not yet see in the daytime sky, the young scientist quickly confirmed that they had jumped ahead approximately one year. Additionally, the brothers were indeed near the city of Capernaum.
“Why isn’t the portal fading?” wondered Adam suddenly. “If we’re not going home, perhaps we’re being assigned a new mission.”
“I don’t think so,” Thomas countered in response. “Check the watch cover.”
“If it’s still with me,” sighed Adam, slightly disgruntled as he reached inside the pocket of his robe. He removed the object and opened it. “Nope… no new mission, it still shows Fayette, Missouri.” As he spoke the words, the portal solidified once more with an electronic hum and a dazzling display of brilliant golden-yellow energy.
When it faded away only seconds later the two brothers were standing in the familiar, starboard cargo bay of the Lexington. Friends, and home, awaited them.
President Kaufield’s voice was the first to break the awkward silence that followed. “So gentlemen,” he said with his usual candor and good humor. “I see you decided to keep your incredibly large dog?”
Sol System, Earth orbit, present day…
Studying the faces of all his friends in the conference room, Adam shrugged his shoulders. “Is that it?” he asked curiously. “This is probably the shortest debriefing I’ve ever been through.”
“Me too,” agreed Thomas with his awkward, boyish smile.
Noriana Roh, Glen Fredericks, President Kaufield, Mary Fredericks, Noah and Dr. Karen Simmons were all seated around them. The President grinned at them in response. “We tag-teamed pretty well on the telemetry feeds that you shared with us,” he informed them. “There’s very little that happened during the times we were disconnected that we don’t already know about. The rest… didn’t take that long to fill in.”
“It is truly a shame that you couldn’t spend more time with Jesus Christ,” added Noah with a disappointed shake of his head. “That was an amazing opportunity, one my people have been waiting for centuries to investigate with you. I wish we could have gone with… I myself have so many questions…”
Adam took a healthy sip of coffee from a white foam cup before reaching into his pocket and tossing the silver watch onto the table top. The President picked it up carefully, opening its cover slowly. “You know, I had this at one time,” he pointed out. “Even after you two traveled more than two thousand years into the past, somehow this thing leaped across time and space from you to me. Truly an incredible demonstration of transit capability.”
“The image is still stuck on Fayette, Missouri,” pointed out Thomas, “even after we came back.”
“Yeah, about that,” added Adam somewhat reluctantly. “Before we head back to the Proteus galaxy, Thomas and I would really like to accept that suggestion and pay a visit to our home state.”
Nori studied him with interest. “I thought you didn’t want to ever see Earth again, since everything is so desolated and poisoned. You told me once that you would never again set foot on it.”
“Yeah well, color me just a little bit nostalgic,” replied Adam grudgingly. “I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re here now, in Earth orbit, or that map on the watch casing that touched a chord of some sort within me. Regardless of what it is, I thought it might be nice to stroll around our old neighborhood for a while and see if there’s anything recognizable left. We might not be back here for some time.”
Dr. Simmons studied him apprehensively. “I still need to run a full medical review on you,” she told him. “If your neck was indeed broken, then whatever healed you might not have done a perfect job. I would very much like to take a few x-rays, just to be safe.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Adam chuckled at her professional demeanor, seemingly unbreakable even in the informal setting. “I would say whatever healed me did a damn efficient job… I was dead.”
“I want to take a look at your spinal column, just to be safe,” she insisted softly but firmly.
“We’ll only be an hour or two,” acknowledged Adam in response. “Then I’ll come right to your lab.”
“As luck would have it,” the gray-haired Doctor told him, “I have an opening in this morning’s schedule.” His wife laughed at the joke and playfully punched him on the shoulder, relieved to have him back.
“What’s going to happen on Earth now that you’ve taken down the Brotherhood?” inquired Thomas. “Are we going to reopen the portals to the Proteus galaxy and bring in more help? Or is another attempt at time travel in the works?”
Noah and President Kaufield exchanged uneasy glances. “That’s going to take some time to figure out,” said Noah finally. “Although the President has gained the confidence of the Brotherhood’s remaining leader, there are still a lot of hostile killers out there… on Earth and on board the warships patrolling the Sol system.”
“We’re working hard to identify them,” noted Kaufield. “Since they have genetically enhanced strength, detaining them will be a difficult task. Done incorrectly we could take severe casualties. But everyone we do end up catching will be relocated to a penal colony in the Proteus galaxy where they can spend the rest of their lives as they see fit.”
“What about Valiana 001 and the people who remain loyal to her?” asked Adam inquisitively. “Their sympathy to the Earth survivors saved a lot of lives and made things much easier for you, in the end.”
“Yes they did, which is why we might end up granting them access to some land with which to set up permanent residence on Tranquility,” the President told him. “They could have made things significantly more difficult for us, given the circumstances.” He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “As for another attempt at a short range time travel mission, we’ve kind of shelved that idea for the moment.”
Thomas’ hopes fell and his expression clearly showed it. “Why?”
“Because there is a reason for the intervention with the first attempt,” Noah pointed out. “That reason may not be immediately clear to us yet, but we have to take some time and evaluate what happened. It is possible that we may eventually discover the specific reason. Rushing into another similar mission at this point would be extremely risky and possibly provoke whoever intervened even further.”
“I don’t like not knowing the full truth,” said Glen firmly. Mary put a gentle hand on his arm and smiled.
“None of us are satisfied at this point,” Kaufield conceded with mild frustration. “That’s quite simply the way it is. We may eventually learn the truth, or we may not. A decision as to whether or not to try another time travel mission is safely off the table for dis
cussion now, at least until we finish dismantling the remaining Brotherhood leadership. Once things on Earth have settled down, we’ll revisit the issue.” He glanced briefly at his watch, taking note of the time. “However, you’ll have to excuse me now… additional Earth warships will be transiting into the Sol system shortly and Admiral Henry will want me to be there to greet them. We may not be back here for a while, but our military will soon establish a permanent presence.”
Waving a cautious hand, Adam caught his attention as the President rose to leave. “Thomas and I would appreciate it if you could free up a shuttle for us… we really want to visit home one last time.”
Nodding with understanding, Kaufield smiled. “Then report to the port shuttle bay in ten minutes. I’ll have Joseph take you wherever you want to go.”
“Joseph?” said Adam with mild surprise. “Your kid?”
“That’s right. He’s the best pilot on the Lexington now.”
“Well how about that?” chuckled Adam, clearly impressed.
*
The shuttle flight to Earth was essentially quiet and laid back. Thomas and Adam both embraced Joseph Kaufield eagerly during the pre-flighting process and caught up on old times, but during the actual trip down through the atmosphere they allowed him to focus on the flight and attend to business. There was, after all, still a Brotherhood threat to be reckoned with even if the President’s new ‘treaty’ with the remaining Triumvirate leader was supposedly in place. The number of militants who were active and would not follow her leadership was a large one – a brutal fact that needed to be respected in light of everything else that had happened. Even with Kaufield’s presumptive victory, it would be some time before the danger lessened.
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 103