“If you really felt the need to yank modern physics out of the ditch, why didn’t you enlighten one of my mother’s colleagues instead?” asked Diet. “I’d dearly love to see her turn green.”
“Your mother gave you life… whether she was a good mother afterwards or not, is irrelevant,” said Hal. “We need to honor her for that much at least.”
“Some life. You didn’t have to grow up with a narcissistic mental goddess and be constantly talked down to, from on-high,” said Diet, rolling his eyes.
“Don’t be churlish,” said Hal. “Besides, I could talk physics with her at her own level and she thought that I was you. I’d think you’d get a hell of a chuckle out of that idea.”
“She’ll never accept anything she thinks came from me,” said Diet. “She never believed it was possible that I was actually a product of her genes.”
As they talked, a passerby was coming towards them on the path. Neither really paid the man much attention until after he’d passed by them, when they suddenly heard a voice from behind them say, “Bat!”
* * * *
Melendez hadn’t really been paying much attention, as he approached the two men standing beside a grave next to the path he was on. One was bearded, wearing blue-jeans, a black leather biker’s jacket and a nondescript ball cap. The other was clean-shaven and bare-headed, wearing a high-priced suit and a tan cashmere topcoat. Other than the strange contrast in their clothing styles, there had been nothing about them to draw his attention, but a sudden flash of recognition shot through him as they passed.
“Bat!”
The two men paused and turned to discover themselves face-to-face with Admiral Enrico Melendez.
“Hello, Bat… good to see you again,” said Melendez. “You’re looking pretty good for someone everyone thought was dead.”
Melendez had been staring directly at Hal as he spoke, so he wasn’t totally prepared when the bearded man standing beside him said, “I beg your pardon? I do believe you may have mistaken my brother for someone else, Admiral.”
“Very odd,” said Melendez. “He has Bat Masterson’s face,” nodding towards the man in the suit, “and you have his voice. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Bat Masterson: William Barclay ‘Bat’ Masterson, born November 26, 1853 and died of heart failure, October 25, 1921… was a well known figure of the American Old West,” said Hal. “He was known as a gambler, buffalo hunter, frontier lawman, U.S. Marshal, Army scout, and sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph. He was the brother of lawmen James Masterson and Ed Masterson.
“Bat Masterson’s initial public notoriety can be ascribed to a practical joke played on a gullible newspaper reporter in August of 1881. While seeking copy in Gunnison, Colorado, the reporter reportedly asked Dr. W.S. Cockrell a question about man-killers. Although Masterson had only used a firearm on just six previous occasions, Dr. Cockrell pointed him out and told the reporter that Bat had killed 26 men. Cockrell then reportedly regaled the reporter with several lurid tales of Bat’s supposed exploits, and the reporter wrote them up for an article in the New York Sun. The story was later widely reprinted in newspapers all over the country and became the basis for many more exaggerated stories told about him over the years.”
Melendez blinked in astonishment. People didn’t talk like that. Melendez felt like he’d just retrieved a historical reference out of a computer.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother, Admiral,” said the bearded man. “He has a strange way with words sometimes.”
“That wasn’t exactly the Bat Masterson I was referring to,” said Melendez. “I was talking about my Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral John Masterson.”
“Vice Admiral John Wayne ‘Bat’ Masterson, born June 1, 3830 and adopted by internationally renowned and Nodel Prize winning physicist, Dr. Ophelia Myrtle Masterson, Ph.D. the same day,” said Hal. “Raised on Indinara and currently assigned as military attaché to President Arlene McAllister and chief of staff to Admiral Enrico Melendez, Chief of Alliance Fleet Operations… last seen, mid-July 3865. Extensive investigations into his disappearance by the ABI and Office of Fleet Investigations have proven negative to date.”
Again Melendez just blinked at the well-dressed man who talked more like a computer than a human being.
“Aren’t you the two gentlemen who appeared in the Raknii surrender video?”
The two men glanced at each other and paused noticeably before answering.
“Apparently we do bear some resemblance to those noteworthy gentlemen,” said the scruffy bearded brother. “Others have said that to us before.”
“Visiting a loved one?” Melendez asked.
“Our… um… a relative,” said the bearded man.
It was then that Melendez looked past them to note the name on the gravestone they had been visiting: NIKLAUS von HEMMEL. Melendez’ eyes widened in recognition.
Klaus!
“I knew him, you know.”
“Probably much better than we did,” said the well-dressed man. “We truly envy you that, Admiral.”
Melendez looked at the two men, both having Bat’s voice and Bat’s face and standing next to Klaus von Hemmel’s grave.
This is just too weird.
“I don’t suppose I could talk the two of you into leveling with me… off the record, just for my own peace of mind?”
Again the two looked at each other and then the bearded one said, “Can we walk you to your vehicle, Admiral?”
* * * *
Epilogue
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. — Albert Einstein
The Alliance Planet Nork, City of Nork
December, 3873
Alliance Press (AP): Nork – News Release (12/16/73)
This year’s Nodel Prize in physics was awarded to internationally renowned and former Nodel Prize-winning physicist, Dr. Ophelia Myrtle Masterson, Ph.D. Dr. Masterson, an Institute Professor at the prestigious Massa Institute of Technology accepted her unprecedented second award at this year’s ceremony for Nodel Prize winners, again held in Stockhom, on the planet Scandinava, on December 12th.
This second award was for her revolutionary work in hyperspatial physics which produced a “paradigm shift” — a fundamental change in thinking amongst physicists, about the way that time is understood. By extension, her revolutionary work has already led other scientists towards truly defining the mechanism by which the Stupman-Taylor Overdrive actually operates.
Dr. Masterson’s discoveries will assuredly become the foundation for entirely new fields of study, and are expected to lead to many new discoveries, leading to even faster interstellar travel in the future. Some scholars now speculate that Dr. Masterson’s work might also pave the way for true interstellar communications systems being developed.
* * * *
THE END
Please leave comments on what you thought of the books in this series (and of the entire series itself) on my Amazon page:
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Author’s Afterward
You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little
as if you have lost a friend. — Paul Sweeney
* * * *
If anyone is reading this who is not a member of my immediate family, that hopefully means that my girlfriend Brenda finally found a publisher with a warped enough sense of humor to be willing to take a chance on a first-time author. Whatever the case, I’d like to personally thank each and every one of you who invested your precious time and money reading it. It is my fervent hope that you have reached this page feeling a bit like the quote above and have enjoyed reading this series, at least half as much as I enjoyed the experience of writing it.
Ernest Miller Hemingway is attributed to have once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” I’ve seen many other Hemingway quotes that strongly imply that he didn’
t particularly enjoy the process. To feel an such an inexorable need to get something within you out, yet to experience such rending and tearing to accomplish it, tells me that Mr. Hemingway didn’t write books, so much as he gave birth to them… an arduous process, to say the least. Perhaps it was that intense suffering which empowered him to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, but if that’s what it takes to win awards for writing, I think I’ll pass. Not that I ever actually expect to ever win any awards for writing, mind you… Self-delusion has never really been one of my strong suits.
I’m really not at all sure that I’d even want to. Award winners invariably have tremendous expectations heaped on them and are ever afterwards confronted by the presumption they have suddenly acquired the ability to miraculously shit manuscripts on demand, like the proverbial goose laying golden eggs. Unfortunately, deadlines tend to induce mental constipation — which makes meeting deadlines about as much fun as taking a dump under time constraints, all the while enjoying all the effects of extreme constipation.
I’ve always dearly loved the quote by Douglas Adams that says: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Perhaps that was why I made sure that I had completely finished this entire trilogy, before I let my girlfriend start sending the first book out to prospective agents and publishers… first to prove that I really could finish it, and secondly, to get ahead of the game in case I was wrong about anyone actually wanting to read any of the inane drivel that was leaking out from under my fingernails and onto my keyboard.
Plan-A was always just to have fun putting words to paper. As Plan-A rarely survives first contact with reality, I thought it wise to have already formulated a Plan-B. As my closest personal friend happens to be Edsel Murphy, who insists on dragging his damned immutable law along with him every time he comes over, I also have a Plan-Y. I seriously doubt that I’ll ever really need Plan-Y though, as Plan-Q is a doozy.
As you’ve probably surmised by this time, I do have an unfortunate tendency to be a bit of a smartass, but I’ve noticed that we all tend to be an ass of some sort at times, and as they generally only come in two varieties… smartass always seemed preferable to dumbass, so perhaps that explains it.
Time for me to finally put this one to bed and get going on Plan-A for my next project, because: “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” — Dale Carnegie.
Again, my sincerest thanks to you, dear reader, and it’s my hope that you enjoyed this series enough to want to watch for the next tank of mental sewage to be flushed out of my warped, nonsense of humor. — Gibson Michaels
* * * *
For anyone interested, you can follow my blog on my author’s website at: www.gibsonmichaels.com/blog
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An excerpt from Gibson Michaels’ next book: Éeire
Chapter-1
If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy tales.
If you want them to be geniuses, read them more fairy tales. — Albert Einstein
The Island of Éire
81 A.D.
Aryn Finnegan, of the clan Ó Fionnagáin, focused down the length of his bronze-tipped hunting arrow, and let it fly. He watched with satisfaction as his arrow buried itself in the throat of a black armored invader.
Welcome to Éire… Roman.
The Romans reacted instantly to that kill by his first arrow, beginning to scurry around like ants. He could hear orders being shouted and saw ranks beginning to form up. Two more quickly placed arrows dispatched two more Romans before he climbed down from the tree he’d been perched in, to move to a different location. The Romans obviously intended to come into the forest after him, and that suited Aryn perfectly. When the arrow barrage paused momentarily, nervous legionaries resumed their attempts to dig a series of three trenches across the entrance of the Drumanagh peninsula.
After that black-armored Roman tribune fell dead to Aryn’s first arrow, they sent a full century of armed legionaries into the forest — to search him out and kill him. There was little enough danger in that though, for Aryn Finnegan was the unknowing master of an art that wouldn’t be fully appreciated for another two millennia. His self-made clothing was constructed from the hides of all kinds of small game — an irregularly shaped patchwork of various colors and textures that produced a mottled look that broke up his outline, making him appear to blend into the background. But, instead of retreating deeper into the forest as they might have expected, Aryn actually moved forward, shifting around a bit to the South.
He climbed to the near the top of the tallest tree, nearest to the edge of the forest closest to the Roman camp. The robust ocean breeze caused the treetop to sway, so finding secure seating was precarious. With the top of the tree whipping back-and-forth, Aryn was finding it difficult to lodge himself into a fork, where he wouldn’t require a handhold. Never a damned sylph around, when you need one. Just as he finally managed to anchor himself to where he could use both hands to draw his bow and…
“What are you doing up here, Aryn?”
The unexpected appearance by the tiny pixie who had taken to plaguing his life recently, startled him so badly he overbalanced, almost pitching completely out of the tree. Barely catching himself with the fist of his bow-hand, Aryn regained his balance and hissed, “Damn it, Rhoslyn! You scared the shite out of me.”
The pixie sniffed and said, “No, I didn’t… I smell no excrement.”
Aryn sighed and shook his head. Faeries could be infuriatingly literal, not understanding human idioms at all. “Your popping in unexpectedly startled me so badly, I almost killed myself, falling out of this tree.”
“Pfft… I wouldn’t have let you fall, silly. I would have caught you, if you’d fallen.”
Rhoslyn was a pixie, a flower faerie of the rose family, whose name meant, “lovely rose.” Dressed in the deep green of rose leaves, she had brilliant red hair… not the orangey color called “red” in humans, but the true red of the flower she was named after. About the size of Aryn’s middle finger, so tiny was Rhoslyn, it was difficult to actually see her pointed elfin ears and transparent, luminescent wings, even after she alighted on the palm of his hand. It was easy to forget that Rhoslyn’s appearance was entirely of her own choosing… a magical glamour of sorts, that she wore about her, like people wore clothing. Aryn knew that her ability to fly came from her inherent magical abilities, and not from those tiny pixie wings. She could have made herself appear the same size that he was, if she’d so wished… or even as big as a house. Whether she was actually capable of catching a full-grown man falling from the top of a tree wasn’t something he wanted to test for himself.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got bored and began wondering what my friend Aryn might be up to these days. That’s exactly what I was just asking — why are you so high up in this tree? Oak trees don’t produce anything mortals consider edible… you’d be much better served climbing a walnut, beech or cherry tree for that.”
Aryn rolled his eyes at her and replied, “I’m not searching for nuts or berries… I’m killing Roman invaders, if you must know.”
“Romans? Isn’t that what the invaders that Finvarra prophesied were called?”
“Yes, they’re here now… so I’m killing them.”
“Humpf, good luck with that. The way this tree is swaying in this wind, even you might find it difficult to hit anything from up here.”
Rhoslyn somehow maintained her position standing on the upturned palm of Aryn’s left hand, despite the motion of the tree, and the resultant jostling of his hand. Aryn figured it must be somethin
g else he didn’t understand about how faerie magic worked.
“Yes… too bad you’re not a sylph, so you could calm this wind down for me. That would be helpful.”
“You wish that I was a sylph?” Rhoslyn sniffed — miffed. “I nurture the most beautiful flowers in all creation, and you wish I was a sylph? Be careful Aryn… that’s coming awfully close to an unforgivable insult to a pixie.”
“I didn’t say that I wish you were a sylph, but flowers aren’t what I need right now. What I need is for this damned wind to settle down. You can’t do that, can you?”
Rhoslyn’s indignation morphed into a pout. “Well… no,” she finally admitted sadly. “My powers cannot affect the wind, but I can see if I can find you a sylph to help with that.”
“I would appreciate it — and while you’re at it, you might alert Queen Úna, so she can pass the word on to Kyla. Can you remember this exact location… the Drumanagh peninsula?”
Rhoslyn snorted. “Are you trying to insult me again? Of course I can remember.” The pixie disappeared with a soft pop, like a soap bubble bursting.
Damn, she disappeared so suddenly, I never had a chance to ask her to fetch me more arrows from my cave.
The swaying motion of the tree prevented him from focusing in on a specific target, so Aryn just watched as Roman legionaries spread out and entered the forest, looking for him. Only a couple at the far right end of their line came anywhere close, and he watched them pass to either side of his perch. Both carried their rectangular, edge-rounded shields close to their bodies, glancing up, as well as around in search of their prey, but Aryn was much too far up to be spotted from the ground.
Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera Page 39