by Clyde Key
* * *
Ed had never seen metropolitan Lubbock, though he’d read much about it. An important banking and business center, it was still a place hardly anybody went to unless they worked there or had relatives in the city. In the center was the historic old city, with its business district and a couple of college campuses. The campuses were well maintained and neat, but the rest of the central city had decayed and much of it was abandoned. Then there was the new business district that completely encircled the old city. It consisted of glass-covered skyscrapers that glared painfully in the Texas sun. Housing tracts stretched for miles in all directions. The flatness of the terrain under the clear blue sky gave this city an illusion of existence in a large shallow bowl.
Major Baines’ brother Samuel owned a large older building on the outer edge of the old city and just inside the circle of skyscrapers. Samuel Baines met them at the back of the building and opened an overhead door that allowed both of the transport floaters to drive inside at the same time. The building was obviously as old as the crumbling structures all around it, but seemed in good repair. Samuel Baines was much like his building, quite old and very wrinkled but also solid. The old fellow helped the young soldiers unload the crates and stack them all along a wall on the bottom floor. Then he helped them stack other boxes in front of the weapons. If anybody ever broke in and looked in the boxes they would believe that all contained out-of-date packages of food.
After the weapons had been stashed, Samuel Baines took Ed and the major up to the second floor to show them something else. “I’ve had these up here for several years but I couldn’t tell anybody about them, what with the gun control laws.” Samuel pried up the lid of an old wooden crate, and then tore away some plastic sheet. Inside were handguns, the old-fashioned kind that fired lead bullets. It was an odd collection that included several different revolver models as well as a couple of magazine-fed automatics.
“My gosh, Sam!” exclaimed Ed. “Do you know what kind of trouble you could get into for keeping these?”
“Yeah. About ten percent of what you guys could get for stealing government weapons.”
Ed thought that one over. “Yeah, but still... why did you ever do it?”
“Stubbornness, I guess. I never did like the feds or anybody else telling me what I couldn’t own. Way I figure it, if I don’t hurt anybody else, this is completely my own business.”
Major Elvis Baines said nothing for a long time as he rummaged through the box of old weapons. Then he held one up and studied it carefully before popping the cylinder out. “Colt 45,” he announced absently. “Wonder how old that is?” Then he took out another. “Smith & Wesson .38. This is an old late twentieth century police weapon.” Turning to his brother, he asked, “Do you have any ammunition for these?”
“For most of them,” said Sam. “It’s questionable how good it may be by now, or how safe, but it’s packed away sealed up and dry like the guns.”
The major turned to Ed. “Let’s send the young guys back to camp. I’d kind of like to fiddle around with a couple of these before we go back.”
“How about we just give them a pass and send them off with one of the floaters?” said Ed.
Major Baines nodded agreement, then hobbled over to the elevator and disappeared. He returned a couple of minutes later. “They’re gone already.”
“Did I understand you want to fire some of these old guns?” asked Sam. “If that’s the case, you’ll need to take some precautions.”
“Like what? If this is dangerous, maybe we should leave it alone,” said Ed.
“I’ll show you,” said Sam, “but not here because of the noise. We’d get in trouble for sure. “Lets go out to the farm.”
“Is it far to the farm?”
“Oh, no. It’s about 50 kilometers south of town—about twenty minutes.”
Sam Baines’ farm was located on a back road and his house and barns were at least 500 meters from the nearest neighbors, but the major still worried about the noise the weapons might make. He had fired many similar weapons several years earlier and remembered them to be quite loud.
“That’s not going to be a problem,” said Sam. “We can fire them in the barn without anybody hearing them. In fact, we need to test them first anyway.”
“Test them? How?” asked Ed.
Sam showed them the rig he had set up in the largest of his barns. He had clamps built which held handguns firmly by the handle (the stock, he called it). The weapons were set to fire into a large wad of grass that was tied together tightly with steel wire. (Sam called that a haybale.) There was a paper target tied across the haybale. “These walls are double insulated,” said Sam, as he spoke of his barn with obvious pride. “Nobody outside will hear a thing.”
“This is impressive. You must do quite a bit of work with these old weapons,” said Ed.
“I do. It’s an old hobby of mine,” said Sam.
When Sam had secured a gun he called a Colt 45 in the clamp, he loaded its cylinder with stubby gray bullets and tied a long string to its trigger. Then they all stepped back into an adjacent room before Sam pulled the string. Ed was startled by the loud report of the weapon, but the Baines brothers both expected the noise and were barely affected by it. Both Baines chuckled at Ed’s reaction. Then Sam Baines pulled the string five more times until the weapon wouldn’t fire any more. “It’s empty,” announced Sam. “It’s only a six-shooter.”
“That doesn’t seem very efficient,” said Ed. “In a war, somebody could get killed while they were trying to reload it.”
“That’s true,” said the major. “That’s one of the main reasons the military all went to laser handguns. A couple of hundred shots before a recharge is a whole lot better to defend yourself with.”
“It may not be efficient, but it still works,” said Sam. “It didn’t blow up. Since it seems to be safe, would you like to fire it?” He directed the question to Ed.
“Well, certainly. Maybe I ought to watch you do it first, though.”
“Okay. That’s probably wise.” Sam removed the pistol from its clamp and reloaded it. “I have some ear protection you ought to wear. These old weapons can damage your hearing pretty quickly.” Sam opened a drawer and took out a device that looked much like a pair of small pillows with a connecting band. He put the thing on his head so that the little pillows covered his ears. Then he gave one of the devices to Ed and another to Elvis Baines.
Ed and the major donned the ear protectors. Then Sam began to speak again and Ed was surprised not to hear a word of it. Sam pointed to a small knob on the device he wore and Ed noticed his protector had the same knob. When he turned the knob, it clicked and suddenly Ed could hear again. Turning the knob as far as it would go made Ed able to hear quite well. “You know what? I need a pair of these. I can hear better than I normally can!”
Elvis Baines had also tried the control. “Yeah, me too. But won’t this make it even louder when we shoot the weapons? It looks like it would defeat the purpose.”
“Nah,” said Sam. “There’s a compression circuit in it that makes the gun sound only like a little pop.”
As Ed and the major watched, Sam Baines pointed the pistol at the target on the haybale. He held his right arm perfectly straight and braced it with his left hand. He fired three times and each time, his hand moved sharply upward a few centimeters. Then he placed the weapon down and they all went to inspect the target that had three large jagged holes all to the left of the bullseye. “I noticed your arms go up every time you fire. Are you supposed to do that?” asked Ed.
Sam laughed. “You’ll find out about that. Just be sure to keep your elbows stiff and a firm grip. Don’t pull the trigger real fast but just kind of squeeze it slow ‘til it fires.”
Ed held the gun and aimed it just like he had seen Sam do it. Then he squeezed the trigger slowly until the gun fired. The weapon surprised him, kicking back with a violent jolt. It was a good thing he’d been warned! Then he fired two more times
and tried to fire it again but the gun only clicked. Ed figured out it was empty.
Ed put the weapon down and they all went to inspect the target again. It still only had three holes. “Hmm. I’m not worth crap at this. I wouldn’t be a danger to anybody.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” said Major Baines. “But you just might not be any danger to the enemy!”
Ed turned to Sam Baines. “Do you think I could get one of these guns, like maybe the one we just fired?”
“I don’t care,” said Sam, “but you could get in a hell of a lot of trouble for it.”
“I probably could,” said Ed. “But I probably couldn’t get any more trouble than your brother finds for me.”
Sam made a gift of the weapon to Ed, along with several crumbling plastic boxes of ammunition. Ed packed it all away and the two old soldiers returned to Camp Kingman.
31
Aug. 18, 2112
Arlene Sisk noted with some satisfaction that The Visitors’ presence in Washington elevated her importance considerably. Certainly the politicians and bureaucrats—except for AABC administrators—had no framework for dealing with Veezee. To be sure, she also had no established line of communication with The Visitors but she had at least communicated successfully with the Eldest Veezee without provoking confrontation and that was more than anybody could say for Ed Halloran and the military.
There were two opportunities for Arlene on this day. First, she would meet with the three Veezee emissaries at a secret location where she would begin to set up the framework for interaction between Veezee and the United States Government. To achieve some semblance of parity, Arlene would take two deputies with her even though she didn’t need their assistance. Perhaps some secretarial help would be appropriate to record this event exactly for posterity, she thought. She could choose a couple of her subordinates who could be counted on to put the AABC in the best possible light.
Then there would be a press conference later. Arlene could expound on her accomplishments at the meeting with The Visitors, and she had invited those reporters who always wrote favorable articles about AABC. She had a handout already prepared which touted the successful exchange of ideas that she knew would come.
As an afterthought, Arlene decided it would be beneficial to have another press conference soon where the Veezee emissaries would be invited. Of course, the agenda for this would have to be closely controlled so that no confrontation or other incident could possibly mar the historic occasion. Perhaps that meeting might even be today!