“I’ve enjoyed talking to you again, Herb,” he said as he reached out his hand for Zheng to shake. “I wish the subject could have been more pleasant.”
“Understood, Len,” Zheng replied as he held out his own hand to take Pedersen’s. “Thank you for everything. I think you may have helped alleviate most of my fears.”
“Think nothing of it,” Pedersen said. He pulled his coat around him and turned to head for the door. “One more thing,” he said, right before grasping the door knob and giving it a twist. “I know you still have the data cards from the Armstrong.”
“Yes, I do,” Zheng confirmed. “And, I still have the memory cards that Non gave me. Nothing was disturbed. I don’t know why.”
Pedersen looked relieved.
“Continue your investigation,” he told Zheng. “I’ll be waiting for your assessment. I don’t yet know who I’ll be handing it off to after I read it. Cozeremi’s successor hasn’t been named.”
Pedersen turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Keep in touch, Herb,” he said as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
Zheng sat back down. He refilled his coffee mug and turned his chair toward the window to look out over the common.
The late afternoon sun painted long shadows on the aging blanket of snow well worn by foot traffic in all directions.
It would soon be dinner time. Zheng and his family had chosen to secure passage on a shuttle and travel from the Academy to the supply depot in the equatorial region of the planet. They planned to have dinner at the officer’s club in the depot, secure billeting and stay there for the night.
It meant that in the morning, Zheng would have more time to spend with Emily, Stephen and Laurel before they left for one of the transports waiting in orbit to trundle the graduates and their visitors to their destinations in other parts of the League of Aligned Planets.
Zheng took a quick look at his wrist chronometer to check the time. He needed to go by his apartment to collect some things in an overnight bag before meeting his family for the ride to the terminal.
He put his coffee mug to his lips and turned it up.
“Much better than that Ekkidan slosh,” he thought to himself.
There was a tentative knock on his office door. He didn’t bother to ask who it was. He stood up, walked around the desk and went to the door to open it. It was his ex-wife.
“Admiral. This is a pleasure,” Zheng said as he motioned for Laurel to enter. “Is there something you wanted?”
“I saw Len leaving,” Laurel told him. “I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Epilogue
17-December-2409
The Historian looked around his office.
The empty coffee mugs and the nearly empty pot were just as he left them the previous afternoon.
He picked up the coffee pot and opened his office window. He poured out the remaining coffee and closed the window back, before taking the pot and the mugs to the sink in his private washroom to put them in the sink.
He was starting to feel hungry, but it was the middle of the afternoon and the cafeteria was closed to get ready for the evening meal. He would have to wait.
He went to the rest of his office windows and opened the blinds.
The common was quiet and there was no sun that afternoon. Half a meter of snow was expected for that evening. The Historian didn’t doubt it would get there, even though not so much as a flake had fallen from the cloudy sky since he had made it back to the Academy from the supply depot.
Zheng’s pantry was almost decimated by the week’s company and the small grocery at the Academy was closed for restocking after being nearly emptied by the extra graduation week traffic. That meant Zheng would have to go to the cafeteria for an early dinner before heading for his apartment.
With an hour to wait before the cafeteria opened, he felt he must do something to keep himself busy. He fought to keep his mind from wandering toward subjects he would rather not think about for the time being. There were tasks he needed to complete before the start of the next term, but he wasn’t really in the mood to think about schoolwork, either.
Before he could stop himself, Zheng found his thoughts turning to Galuz Cozeremi and how his life was taken. His tired mind was torn between his desperate desire to make sense of the events of the previous few months and the need to just let it all go, if only for a few days, so he could rest, regroup and look at what he had learned with fresh eyes.
Like falling into quicksand, one thought led to another and what he had read and heard and viewed about the Ark, the Armstrong and the Zunnuki invasion ran wild through his head.
His racing mind resisted his attempts to constrain it, even for a small time. It was desperate to reconcile what he had most recently learned with his previous theories surrounding the ill-fated voyage of John Edward Chamberlain from Earth to Terra Nova.
“No,” he yelled out loud, angry at himself for not being able to keep his mind off the subject. “I am worn out. I will not do this today. I need time for myself. Damn it.”
He briskly walked to the fireplace, grabbed the whisk and spread the pile of ashes from the previous fire into a thin layer. He then picked up the remaining few pieces of firewood from the box beside the hearth and placed them one at a time on the grate. He pressed and held the igniter button until the wood started to burn on its own.
Then he walked to the file cabinet in the corner of the office. He bent over and spoke a pass code into the electronic lock. Once the lock released, he pulled open the middle drawer and reached inside to pull out his briefcase.
He put the case on his desk and spoke another pass code into the electronic lock that secured it. He left alone the ancient tablet and memory cards he had been given to help him in his quest to find out the truth about Chamberlain. He instead pulled out his personal tablet and placed it on the desk beside his briefcase.
He pressed his thumb over the sensor that activated the device. The screen lit up and a flashing message indicated there was new, unopened hyper-mail in his queue. He opened his hyper-mail viewer to look.
There were three messages waiting.
The first was a short message from the Dean of Academics reminding him that his revised lesson plan and syllabus were due by 5-January-2410 for review. The second was a reminder from the Academy medical center that his yearly check up was quickly approaching.
The third was from Emily. His eyes moistened as he opened it to read. “It’s only been two hours,” he said aloud, trying to sound gruff, even though Emily couldn’t hear. “You probably haven’t even left orbit.”
“Colonel Zheng,” the message began. “It has been an honor and pleasure to receive my education in history from you for these last four years. I want you to know I consider you a fine instructor. I always gave you high marks on the student evaluation forms I was required to fill out at the end of each term. I can’t honestly say you are among my ten favorite instructors, but I will concede ‘Honorable Mention’ status…”
Zheng couldn’t keep himself from laughing out loud.
The End of Book One.
About the Author:
Robert Dean Hall is a burgeoning science-fiction writer who currently lives in Southern Ohio with his adoring, gorgeous wife who inspires him to write, and two dachshunds that conspire to do everything possible to keep him away from his keyboard.
When Robert isn’t writing, he is watching his grandson play sports, following the various and sundry endeavors of his three beautiful and multi-talented daughters, working for an agency of the Federal Government or LOLing on the Cheezburger Network.
Robert is now busily at work on multiple projects including The War Orphans, the second book in the Terra Nova Chronicles series, as well as some short stories.
Please visit me:
Twitter: (https://twitter.com/obiwanbeeohbee)
Welcome to Terra Nova (http://obiwanbeeohbee.wordpress.com)
The Terra Nova Chronicles (http:/
/terranovachronicles.blogspot.com/)
Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles) Page 44