I rested it on the windowsill, Ike pointed out the direction, and I shortly saw what he’d seen. Sure enough it was Thelma, or what looked like her. We’d have to accept her as her until we knew different. If it was her she probably had been through enough without our suspicions. I said as much to the rest. They agreed.
Chapter 2
She kept on coming and less than a half hour later she was in front of the Emperor's Rest. I walked out by myself and she threw down the tie up rope. I wound it around a column--tied it--and helped her down. She put her arms around my neck like she wasn’t ever going to let go.
I broke the silence, “You could have got here quicker by kicking this creature in the ribs.”
She didn’t let go none, but laughed and laughed up against me. That sure felt nice. From my response to her, I reckoned she was real, or would do, until the real Thelma came along.
She said, “There wasn’t any rush. I was also sorting out in my head how to tell you my story.”
The rest of the group joined us and Ike asked, “What story?”
“Why I didn’t come here with the rest of you. Come on in with me and let’s get it over with. Rafe get that carpet bag off the saddle won’t you?"
I untied the bag and swung it down. It wasn’t light. “What’s in here?”
“Tell you in a moment.”
Grabbing my free arm like a drowning sailor, she led us all into the bar room and we sat at a large poker table. She waved to the middle of the table and I sat the bag there.
“I understand you all woke up here. I woke up in an Indian village, in a teepee. It wasn’t like any Indian village I ever saw. There were no dogs around and the horses were kept quite a distance away so no horse manure or horse flies. Also no bugs and gnats. The people I saw looked like Indians, but I don’t think they were. I also think they lived mostly in a big, big, shiny house that they wouldn’t let me get close to. Odd it was, almost not to be seen, and every time I got a look at it, it was different. I asked someone about that and she said that change was to prevent them getting stuck. Made no sense to me, and she was going to try to explain, but changed her mind.”
Jason asked, “They bother you any?”
“No, not at all. And they fed me good. When I got my feet under me, the chief talked to me and said we had been lifted out, his words, to give us another chance. I told him the last chance had been fine, but he made me see that I would have died in four years, from some pox. That got me to thinking and paying attention.”
I asked, “Did the Indian chief say we all weren’t long to be alive?”
“He talked round and round, but in the end I thought that to be true. Anyway, we talked and talked, over two weeks, I think.”
Marilyn interrupted, “We’ve only been here two days.”
“He mentioned that it would be different for you. He said water flows at different speeds. But what he was saying was the whole thing wasn’t a quick event. They’d been working on their plan for some time. Something about acquiring allies. I don’t know the exactness of it all. I just want to say, I got the impression, they didn’t do it lightly. At the end he only said ride in that direction, until I was here. How many hours I rode I don’t know. Also I don’t think I could find my way back there. The grassland looks all the same. But we have no need to go back there. I’ve brought along all the directions.”
We exchanged glances, and Thelma watched us do so. “I know you don’t know what to make of this, but you can decide when I’m done talking. Jason, dump the bag out on the table.”
I did and watched six bundles, about ten inches square, fall out. I noticed names on the bundles and gave one to each person. I cut the string around my bundle and out of the corner of my eye saw the rest doing the same. Inside I saw letters of credit with the payee space blank, in denominations of $1,000.
I looked stupidly at Thelma and asked, “Where the hell are we supposed to spend this?”
“You aren’t. You’re supposed to send them to someone who you think would like to join us here.”
I asked angrily, “Who the hell would want to do that?” And answered my own question. I knew of about a hundred souls in our company who’d lost everything, like Ike and Jason and I, and were looking for any kind of a new deal. I looked away from Thelma, at a wall, and reviewed what she’d said. After my review, I concluded I just didn’t know. I looked back at the table and thought, from the puzzled faces, that everyone else had reached the same conclusion.
I asked, "How?”
“I don’t know how. My instructions say, pick out a name, write a letter, no address needed, and put in however many $1,000 you want them to receive, and put the letter in the 'out' box on the Bank President’s desk. It will go out. If they answer, they write to Poseidon Montana/ general delivery, and it winds up in the Bank Presidents ‘in' box. Again, I don’t know how. I don’t even know if the plan works. I guess we’ll just have to try it.”
I looked around at the skeptical faces and said for all of us, “I’d hate to be part of any scheme to end up with a bunch of slaves.”
Thelma said, “I don’t see any slaves here. We’ve got all we could want, which they said would be restocked as we used it, everything! Think of the people you might want to send a letter to. Can you say they are any better off than we here?”
No one answered. What was there to say? Life in the south wasn’t any treat after the War. That was why Ike and Jason and I left. At the same time, I think everyone felt like me, here wouldn't last. Should we get more people into our trap, nice as it was?
I said, “I need a drink. Let’s let this lie for a moment, get a drink, some food and maybe sleep. We don’t have to do anything today Thelma, do we?”
“Of course not, but the lives we might reach, might need to be reached soon. I’m going to go along, but it’s easier for me. I had the time with the Chief and the other members of the tribe.”
I said, “Why don’t you tell us about that.”
She did, and from our searching questions remembered details that she’d seen, and passed over, after putting them in her mind. The questioning was an old and often used method of drawing the last detail out of a scout. Most of the time the scout himself, was the most surprised of all as to how much had been seen.
When we'd eaten and washed the dishes, we were in a better mood to answer Thelma’s question as to what we had decided. One by one, we told her we were going along with her instructions. She appeared happy with our agreement. It was somehow like a lot had been riding on gaining our cooperation. I asked myself if she was telling all of her story. There was no way of knowing.
Chapter 3
THELMA
I watched them make their lists of possible recruits and was satisfied that the plan seemed to be successfully progressing. A look a while ago, from Rafe, told me he thought I wasn’t telling the whole story. Too true, I wasn’t.
It hadn’t been two weeks since I last saw them. It had been two hundred years. In that time, I had done so many things and seen different galaxies up close. I asked the Elders why I’d woke up in their Indian village alone. They’d said that I was the only one out of the six who could withstand ‘Addition’ without going crazy. They thought that was because of my Nurses training; then working as a nurse, in which I had always held a part of me off in a secret place, where the woes of patient's couldn’t effect me.
I’d gone through Addition, in which another intellect had been added to mine--so many times I’d lost count. Through those Additions I’d been able to understand, and withstand the experiences I’d had.
But I was still me; that nurse so bent on making the world a better place. When I was younger, I’d gotten a little off course. I surrendered my heart and other parts, to my married supervisor. When the affair had been discovered, he, instead of standing by me, discovered a rekindled love for his wife. That she was from a wealthy family, probably influenced his thinking, or so I thought much later when I was on the down river passenger boat.
Pittsburgh faded in the distance behind me. I would have fought for my right to do work there, where I grew up, if my life and my family’s lives had not been threatened.
So I worked my way westward, finding my second love, dancing, paid better than nursing. There were a lot of stops between Pittsburgh and the Emperor’s Rest and a lot of living, most of which I didn’t have any regrets about. But now I was here, looking at the central part of what would be my new command crew, knowing how many balls would have to be so delicately juggled to make my mission a success, or even to get it organized. I hated the lies and half answers, but if I were to tell them the whole truth right now, they might not burn me at a stake, but they for sure would shun me. I’d seen it happen too many times before to take a chance; especially with the stakes so high. Exposures to wider realities were best served in small driblets.
All of a sudden, Ike commented, “The hen house, we didn’t go look at the hen house.”
His comment was so abrupt and so far removed from my train of thought that I broke out laughing and couldn’t stop. Fortunately, the rest joined me in my spasms.
When we got our laughter under control, Ike said, “But we should go see to them.”
That about set us off again, but Rafe controlled himself and said, “Yes, we should. Get the rifles. We’ll stop by the hardware store and get a pistol for Thelma.”
I said, “Actually, I’d prefer a short rifle, maybe a short barreled Henry.”
Rafe recalled, “I saw some of those. Let’s go. We’ll finish up on the lists after supper.”
At the hardware store, a pearl handled .36 caliber revolver caught my eye. I’d known a gambler who had one like it. He’d always said, “No sense of carrying all that much weight. Better to learn to shoot.” Maybe I’d send him a letter. Tell him to bring along his latest flame. I also found the Henry I’d referred to and loaded it and put it across my back with its sling.
At the hen house, we let out all but a dozen of the hens and gathered baskets of eggs from the nests. We’d have to bring over some chicken feed from the store. Nothing, in several galaxies, like bacon and fresh eggs for breakfast. Then I started to scan the horizon for something else that should be there. Not wanting to be too definite, I asked, “Can anyone else see that roof top over yonder?”
Ike looked through his glass and said, “Yes, I see it. That’s Doctor Wright's place. He built it down in a hollow. I’m told he had to get out his second story windows in the winter. He said he just didn’t like to hear wind howling.”
I asked, “Rafe, why don’t you and I go over and look at what’s there. We’ll need a supply of medicine and I know what to look for.”
I should know, I put it there myself.
There were some suggestive laughs and comments about alone time, but Rafe said, “It’s a good idea. Thelma and I will cook breakfast tomorrow. We’ll be back before you get the steaks cut off the quarter.”
They laughed and went back to the Emperor's Rest. We continued on to the Doctor’s house. Once there, we looked around. I knew what would be about. I caught up the doctor’s black bag from a desk and placed it by the door of the waiting room exit. Then I gently steered Rafe into an exam room, saying, “Might as well be dammed for deeds done as not done.”
Rafe started shucking his clothes but I was first onto the recovery bed. The directive read ‘Do not waste time having children’. I’d asked why and the answer was ‘You’ll find out’.
We’d had a lot of bedroom practice and we didn’t waste any time. Afterward, I led him into the surgery room, and we washed off with the operating table water hose.
Rafe said, “You sure know where it all is.”
“These medical layouts are nearly the same. Two companies make the tables and such. I’ve used both of the layouts.”
“I forget that you had a life before dancing. You do the dancing so well.”
“And I forget you were from the south, where they raise perfect gentlemen.”
We laughed together, dressed, and started back. Rafe carried the black bag. If he knew what was in it, he would have not been so cooperative. One function it had was enhancing my long distance communication capability. Being a Doctors bag no one would fault me for wanting to keep it close by. It also produced a telepathic linkup to my ship’s computer which couldn’t be interfered with.
At the chicken house we paused to make sure the others had brought back grain and filled the water dishes. We moved on and he said, “There’s no doubt in my mind that you are you. But the question is, were you yourself, when you were told the whole story? Like what danger are we in here?”
Glad that I’d passed the first hurdle, I answered, “It is possible that something has been withheld from me. To be honest, I don’t exactly know what might happen.”
And I didn’t know, whether the plan would come to actuality or not. “I guess we will just have to assume the worst will happen and be on guard.”
Maybe the enemy would come up with something new before I was ready.
Back at the Rest, they all sniffed at us, but no one was sure what we’d done, or not done, so we weren’t joshed much. The supper time went by with a lot of food consumed along with several bottles of wine, which, someone said, were for my safe return, a reward. I just smiled and was happy that I didn’t sense any reservations, not even from Rafe.
After dinner we did dishes, and again sat at the table where the lists were being worked upon. Marilyn observed, “A lot of people we knew will have changed. What happens when they get here and they’re strangers?”
I said, “Just do the best we can. But don’t shut someone out because you don’t totally remember them. Give them a chance.”
That advice seemed to be accepted as a good guide line. I wasn’t worried about being able to handle rowdy people. I’d learned the process of Subtraction as well as I’d learned Addition. I hadn’t come up against anyone in my two hundred years out there that I’d been unable to reason with, eventually. There had been some whom I’d made fifteen months old. That had solved the problem.
Twilight started to fade in when Rafe and I got to the Bank President’s office and placed the envelopes into the ‘out' box. I said, “When we come back tomorrow we’ll have answers.”
“We’ll see. But that’s when the complications start. The hardware store didn’t stock farming implements. They’ll have to be brought in. That means someone will have to stop short, in Poisdon and open a farm implement store and get stocked by rail. That will take a lot of time to order from the manufactures.”
“Maybe they could stock used implements first off.”
“That’s an idea. There’s bound to be lots of farm equipment dealers along the Northern Pacific lines. We’ll just have to decide from the replies we get who seems reliable. Stan Worth was the quartermaster sergeant in our company. He had gift of locating whatever we needed.”
I sent a ‘special message’ out to Stan while saying, “Let’s hope he responds.”
Knowing he would, if he was alive.
We walked back to the Rest. Ike and Louise were on guard duty. Rafe and I were to go on at midnight. Odd, how humans cling to the old with both hands. I’ve met races throughout my years who were exactly the opposite. They’d made for exciting companions but one never knew what to expect.
The six of us had taken over three suites on the second floor. Rafe and I went to ours and fell into bed to wait for midnight, but then we arose and got naked and all slathered up once again. What was I going to do when I became pregnant and had to stop sex for the child’s sake, bridges beyond bridges.
Rafe slept, or what was sleep on this plane, while I considered the dilemma facing me. The Elders had just said, ’you’ll figure something out’. I had. Making contact with the higher selves of my future command staff wasn’t a problem. The problem was tracing back with each of them their torturous pathway back to their mental Homes. And maybe finding out they were the exception and hadn’t came from the same Home that I had
. But I knew from experience that once all that work was done they would be a mixture of my 1880 friends and their previous personalities, conglomerates. That approach worked for a definite military mission of fixed scope and duration, but this mission wasn’t like that. I had nothing to gauge my decision against. Oh well, bridges and bridges. Maybe something would become apparent. I split my attention and became involved in the 'trace back' routines. My mind would report to me when each incoming person's time track was scanned back to their present lifetime's birth.
Rafe and I went on duty at midnight and spent the next eight hours trying to make an inventory of what material supplies we had on hand in the Rest and the general store with it’s warehouse. It wasn’t that hard of a job. The inventory methods were quite straight forward. To some extent our efforts were pointless because the ‘backups’ would replace whatever was used once every day. Being that we found out what was on hand, it was a useful exercise, like not enough coke to run the forge through a days work. Evidently, the livery stable hadn’t had a good bookkeeper, or they had been expecting a shipment shortly after the point of duplication. (Malfunction in the computer program) So coke went on the list of needed items. By the end of the shift we had 39 items on that list.
Jason and Marion relieved us at 0800 and we explained to them what we’d been doing and asked them to check our conclusions. Then we went to bed.
Refreshed and anticipating results, we walked into the bar room mid afternoon. Sure enough, the others were already engaged in their correspondence. Ike saw us and remarked, “I didn’t think we’d be remembered by so many. Not a person from the old company doing well so far. My mail is all takers, for staking them to a new start, out here under the stars. Come to think of it, why don’t we have stars, and a moon?”
I said. “I’ll take it up with the management. Or maybe you just haven’t looked closely.”
“I’ll be out tonight with my glass.”
I didn’t say ‘you’ll damn well find stars and a moon’ but I could have.
Greener Green I: Where Does the Circle Begin Page 2