“You’re the expert. Bacon and eggs enough for you?"
“What’s wrong? I swell out a bit and I can’t cook breakfast any more?” She snapped.
“Yes, no, say you’re a hard one to please.”
“Am not. Just grow a wart in the right place, and you’ll see.”
I put the skillet on the stove and tossed bacon in; at a loss for a moment to comment, but I’d recover.
While we ate Thelma talked at length about the people she’d examined. Not pointless prattle, but an attempt to keep me informed. I did a question period with all incoming men; and their women separately, after asking permission. Occasionally, I learned something that way, which I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Ike and Louise wandered over from the store, as they generally did after opening the doors. They had three clerks to hand out items. A new building was going up next to the store to house the grist mill. Two sets of grinding stones had already arrived; two more were on the way. I was turning into a mayor instead of a military officer. Oh well, mayors lived longer, usually.
Thelma said, “Louise let’s put out some more chalk boards in the waiting room. We have thirty plus children due for exams today. You didn’t forget you promised to help, did you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Children lift my spirits. They want to try something new every moment.”
After the two of them left for the infirmary, I asked Ike, “Anything new, any problems you’re looking at?”
“That big Swede, Oberknoff, is becoming too full of himself, telling everyone what to do; whether they’re on a construction crew, or not.”
“He is getting results. Houses are going up without delay.”
“But I don’t want him shot. He’s not married, and still bosses all the wives like they were married to him.”
Like I needed another worry, “I know the type. Most are harmless. Can’t we get him married off?” (Marriage counselor, too.) “I’ll speak to Reverend Taskin. He’s practical minded, always trying for community harmony.”
Ike said, “Good idea, mention Widow Blakely, she has seven children, none her own mind you, she’s not twenty yet, got them all through marriage. Some gun slick shot her husband in Poseidon. Good candidate. She has so many curves I don’t see how she keeps them all working together. Makes my mouth water, no, salivate, new word, Louise and me have been reading those medical books we found in the store office. Speaking of books, we’re going to have to start a school once the crops are in. Maybe a day boarding school, where the ladies can come and drop off everyone older than three years.”
I observed, “You’re going to get a lot of takers on that one, anyone in mind to do it?”
“No. Should be someone available, to get the idea started. Gotto go. You drop by this evening. I’ll have names.”
I put the dishes in the kitchen sink to soak, refilled my cup, and went out on the veranda to my favorite chair to pick on an old mental bone. The problem was Thelma, before the move to here, wherever here was, and Thelma since. After months and months of indecision I’d finally faced the fact that they weren’t the same person. Sure people act and react differently when faced with new duties. And some rise to overcome, and some fail. I’d seen that many times as commander of the Scout Battalion. It was, in the end, a question of how well Thelma had risen to new responsibilities. She had risen way too far above any level of expectation. So, therefore, she wasn’t Thelma anymore, or rather she was Thelma improved, plus something else. I’d reached this conclusion about three weeks ago. The question now was what, if anything, I should do about my conclusion. Did I just want to go on and keep my mouth shut? Actually, the question was more like, did I think I could put into my mind any possible explanation, and continue to do my duties? I didn’t fool myself for a moment that I could understand all scientific explanations; but on the other hand, if it were all a miracle from God, it was certainly a miracle we five hadn't shared with her. I guess I could have accepted the miracle idea if the six of us were all there was, us six, here alone. After that it got less and less acceptable.
I decided. Going into the examining room, I said, “Thelma, leave this evening free. We have some planning to do.”
She just nodded, saluted and went back to what she was doing with Louise.
After supper at the Rest, Thelma and I walked back to our house slowly. We both didn’t want to get there. But we did. We went into the kitchen where I put split wood on the banked fire to heat the half full coffee pot. I absently wondered whether, if we dug into a hillside by the canyon, we would find coal. I expected we would. We’d have to count on the coal being available at some point. The wood wouldn’t last forever, or maybe it would, which added to my problem.
Thelma sat at the kitchen table and I placed a cup in front of her and a second one across the table, then I sat down facing her. I looked into her brown eyes, “We have to have a talk.”
“Are you sure, Rafe? Sure we can’t just go on as we’ve been doing?”
“Unfortunately, I’m sure. If it were only me, I’d go along with the stream, but we have gathered a lot of people here, and more are on the way. I feel a responsibility to them, to prevent them from coming to some unwanted, unforeseen, possibly preventable, bad end.”
“That’s what I’ve always loved about you, your concern for others. But you’re going to ask questions that maybe you can’t, or won’t, want to hear the answers to.
“I know that Thelma, if that’s your name anymore, but I’ve been bothering this question, questions, from the start, and they won’t give me any peace anymore. These questions are beginning to interfere with my ability to function.”
“Yes, Thelma is my present name. But I guess you spent too much time at the University to keep the questioning part of you quiet. But I warn you, you may not survive knowing, and for sure, you won’t be this Rafe anymore when you do know.”
I stood up and went to the stove for the coffee pot; poured for both of us and sat back down.
“I’ve survived a lot of terrible things, Thelma. I have got to know.”
“Well, if you must, bring your mug with you, and let’s go to another place to drink our coffee, come along.”
Chapter 6
Rafe
We walked out to the woodshed about twenty feet behind the house, went in, and closed the door. Night had fallen and little streams of light through the cracks in the walls made the interior barely visible.
I said almost nervously, “A trip to the woodshed wasn’t my idea of a starting point.”
She laughed, “I see, maybe that will be poetic, I hope not. Prepare yourself. The floor will descend shortly. Just look at a particular point and you won’t get dizzy.”
I looked at a corner of the room. I could feel the floor going down. When I got used to the feeling, the floor stopped descending. The walls of the woodshed faded away and I could see we were standing in the center of a circular room. I couldn’t be sure of the size of the room, but I reckoned at least seventy five feet to the closest wall. There were chairs and desks placed around the wall, I noticed, as I slowly turned. Above the desks were frames which I took to be windows, shut now.
“Sure a lot of windows in here.” I observed, sort of stupidly.
Thelma smiled, took my free arm, and guided me to a circular sofa nearby.
“Sit while you regain your bearings and balance.”
A small table appeared in front of us from somewhere, just in time, before I dropped my cup. I put the cup on it and leaned back against the sofa. It gave way exactly enough to form to the curves of my back. Good start. Maybe I won’t go up in smoke all of a sudden. Thelma chocked off a laugh, and all of a sudden it occurred to me.
“You’re in my head, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but there is plenty of room; for both of us.”
“Can you speak to me in my head?”
“Sure.”
Her voice came from inside me, “HELLO RAFE.” Sort of soothing, and it resonated inside me wi
thout an echo, a pleasant sensation.
I asked, “Can I talk to you in your head?”
Thelma answered out loud, “No. Not that it isn’t possible. You just don’t know how to talk like that. But you could relearn that skill.”
I got the feeling of being separated from everything I ever knew.
“Where are we in relation to the house?"
“Feet down from where the house is; is not relevant. We went through several transitions to another dimension altogether. But, dimensional shifts aside, about a mile.”
“I’m not going to gain much understanding if my questions are silly. Where, or rather what is this place?”
“You said you had an office back on your plantation. Think of this as an office, with windows to all the places on your property, out to the farthest most cranny of some yonder ridge.”
“I can relate to that. I suppose all these desks are occupied when an event makes that prudent?”
“Yes.”
My stomach settled and I took a drink of coffee. It was still warm and still tasted good. Thanks for small favors. I stood, touching my guns as I always did to settle them in their holsters. I didn’t think for a moment that I was going to shoot my way out of this fix. I untied the leg thongs and unbuckled the belt and laid the whole rig on the sofa. Then I took off my vest with the paired .44 derringers in their inside pockets. I laid it alongside my gunbelt and started toward a desk by the wall.
Thelma walked alongside and a bit behind waiting to see what I would do. When I approached the nearest desk the window came to life and showed me a view of some star configuration I didn’t recall. I turned left and walked along the wall to the next desk. The window there showed me a shiny curved surface that revolved to the left as I watched. The next three were vast rooms which contained strange machinery. The four after that showed views of our land starting with a view of the pass into it. I lost count after fifty desks and didn’t make much sense of most of it. There were some views which could only be weapons of some sort. That somehow, made me feel good. There might be a place for me after all, since killing was what I knew best. I walked away from the wall and back to the sofa and sat next to my vest and guns. A coffee pot had appeared, like the one in the kitchen, so I refilled our cups. Then I did a mental inventory and found myself still essentially sane.
I picked up my cup and drank and said, “Well, the kitchen makes good coffee, for a start.”
With a small sigh of relief, Thelma answered, “Yes, they do.”
“I conclude from what I’ve seen here that we are on a ship of some kind.”
“That’s essentially true. By special means this ship will go through space to other planets and through time to past years. We can, and for a test did, go to the future. We concluded it's too confusing to be worth the bother to do so.”
“I can’t begin to understand the workings of this kind of a ship, but I suppose I could learn the ins and outs of it. But the question is why? Why go to all this bother with settlers and such?”
“Rafe, you’re a historian of some stature, four years at the University of Georgia: you learned Latin and Greek. You read their histories. There, in the time of the great countries of the Mediterranean area, it was always a fight between good and evil, between builders and destroyers. It’s not that occasional destruction isn’t necessary, it is. But when the balance becomes more destruction than building, when it’s destruction for destructions sake, and not a pre-runner for building; the people doing the destroying must be curbed, stopped. Do you follow?”
“Yes, I follow, and I agree, but how are we involved?”
“We, you and I and our people are going to do the stopping.”
“Yeah, but who decides who gets stopped?”
“You and I; or, if you can’t get your mind around what’s involved, your son and I.”
“You know it’s a boy already?”
“It’s a boy. But mind you, if our child were to be a girl, as the second one will be if you survive today, there’s no difference out among the stars as to woman or man as far as leadership is concerned.”
“How long were you actually gone?”
“I can’t answer that now. But I will someday. You remember the six of us got married to fit into the reality of our group. That’s the thing about realities. If you expand them too quickly, or too drastically, you lose contact with the ones you are trying to bring to a higher level. You can recall many times from your knowledge of history; where that took place, resulting in death and destruction.”
I sipped coffee in silence waiting for myself to go mad. When I didn’t, I asked, “You’re helping me with this, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but surprisingly little.”
“You can be in minds and redirect them can’t you?”
“Yes, but bear in mind, if I wanted to spend eternity with myself, I would just make copies of myself. I don’t want that. Also, there’s a Code of Honor which proscribes such activity beyond absolute necessity.”
“I’m going to believe you, for now, because I must. You shouldn’t disappoint me later.” I said, in a very serious tone.
“I understand.”
“As a matter of curiosity, where does the commander of all of this sit?”
“Right where you’re sitting, and most of your time will be spent sipping coffee.”
“Not a bad eternity, not bad at all.”
Feeling suddenly very tired, I sat my empty cup down on the table and said, “The walls aren't in sharp focus anymore, Thelma. I feel like I need a rest. There was this place along the river where I used to rest, and the river would talk to me.” I leaned back against the sofa, closed my eyes, and relaxed.
“I can send you back there Rafe, if that’s what you want most.”
“You can?”
“Yes, and maybe your life would work out different.”
I was sorely tempted to take her at her word and try again, though I didn’t believe her completely. But maybe the second time around would come to a better end. I thought and thought and gradually realized that like the first time, or second time, I would probably not be the master of my fate.
I asked, “Can you make it better for me, a better ending?”
“This way could lead to a better end. But no, I can’t say that the War won’t come along, and you won’t get caught up in it.”
I left my spot along the river, and dragged myself back to the room, and Thelma.
“That war should never have been fought. You know that don’t you?” I said.
“I was only fifteen years old when it started so I don’t think I knew much of anything at that age. Later when the soldiers came back, all wounded, I felt sorry for them. I helped at the local Hospital. That’s what got me into nursing. Not being able to do enough for them.”
I continued, “Well, it should have never been; just people too proud to talk, too greedy to let well enough alone. But here’s the strange part. I became a lieutenant in the Scouts, by no choice of my own. Where could I have run away to instead, even if I would have been courageous, or stubborn enough, to do so. In the end, when I started to fight the war, I wanted to win. Gradually, I realized the South couldn’t win, and it was all a scheme to steal the plantations from the ones who owned them. But even then, I wanted to win, and tried my best. The North just had too many guns and too many soldiers and too much of everything. Now here you want me to become involved in another war. Losing one war per lifetime is the most I can do. Do you make sense of my ramblings?”
“Yes. You want assurance that you’ll have a chance of winning this new war. Unfortunately I can’t tell you we will win. I can only show you what you’ll have to fight with. Come along.”
I slowly and stiffly stood and made to buckle on my guns.
She laughed, and said, “Leave them. I’ll show you what weapons are.”
She started toward the wall and I trailed along. When she was about to bump into the wall a door appeared and opened. We went through and
we were in a large warehouse, which try as I did, I couldn’t see the end of. She turned right and went to a length of storage lockers and opened the door of the first one. Out came what I realized was a rifle but it was like nothing I ever saw, or dreamt of.
“This is the standard battle rifle. It has many cousins but this is the standard array of attachments, here.”
I grabbed the rifle as she held it out toward me and put it to my shoulder. It held rock steady, didn’t even want to waver. Thelma reached to the telescope along the top of the barrel and turned a knob. The far end of the warehouse leaped into view and a little red number became apparent, 3,000 meters. Despite the lack of light I could see yonder doorway plain as high noon in the desert. I lowered it from my shoulder with a sense of reluctance like I should have shot something.
“What exactly is this?”
“It’s a .50 caliber 200 shot, caseless, bringer of destruction. The ‘scope doesn’t care if it’s night or not. That drum holds the cartridges. Some explode on contact. Some melt through metal. It weighs ten point seven pounds loaded. No matter if the drum is almost empty or not. It will always weigh 10.7 pounds. You feel no recoil. Not like that Sharps which knocked me on my ass once. The barrel doesn’t move from where the first shot was aimed, unless you move it. It will fire all 200 rounds in 30 seconds if you want to. Are you getting the idea?”
“Yes. How about hand guns?”
She took the rifle from me and put it back in the locker and took out a type of hand gun I’d never seen. She handed it to me and I sighted along top barrel which had V/Post sights. The lower barrel was longer than the upper one. She turned a knob on the rear of the upper barrel. A green stream of light appeared. The pistol held quite comfortable, not too much weight at the barrel’s end. I moved the green light stream here and there.
Thelma said, “Where ever the light goes the gun shoots. It shoots caseless .25 caliber bullets which explode on contact. The magazine in the grip holds fifty rounds. Everybody’s harness holds ten such magazines.”
Greener Green I: Where Does the Circle Begin Page 4