Unfortunately, General Smith and the doctors, and the entire infrastructure they represented, had deluded themselves into believing he controlled access to Skid and Skidian technology, and that he could and would deliver it to them. They were so used to getting their own way they couldn’t seem to cope with someone simply standing up to them and saying no.
At the end of the day he only nominally controlled anything. What the MPU had given him, it would just as easily take away. Maybe already had, as far as he knew.
“OK?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. “What’s next on the agenda?”
I need to remain in close proximity to Earth to ensure Automedon will actually go into orbit as planned. This will take a few months only.
“What’s your plan until then? What am I supposed to do while we wait?” Bruce asked out loud as it slowly dawned on him he might be able to do a lot of things as long as he kept a low profile and kept away from his usual haunts. The Americans had thrown the big guns at him, and he had so far come away unscathed.
He looked from Leaf to Myfair and then at old Mrs Pratt who was taking a wee while to get a grip on where she was. Her mouth was opening and closing like a gasping fish as she struggled to catch up, let alone articulate what she was thinking.
“It’s OK, Mrs Pratt,” Bruce said to her reassuringly. He belatedly realised he knew almost nothing about her. Did she have a family, a partner or someone else who might miss her? Now she was with him on the spaceship, could she ever go home again?
More than likely the United States Government was already putting pressure on the New Zealand Government to extradite him back to the US on some trumped-up charge the moment he set foot back on New Zealand soil. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had staked out the farm already, just in case.
Getting the United States establishment to understand there was a temporary new sheriff in town who did not take too kindly to their bullying tactics was going to take a them a while, Bruce thought. Even more significantly, realising the MPU, if not Bruce, had the wherewithal to resist them with impunity was probably going to take them even longer. There were going to be a few harsh lessons to be learnt, and Bruce hoped there would be minimal collateral damage.
Depending on how sure they were he and Leaf had perished in the explosion once the missile had hit the car would influence how long it would take for them to come looking for him. Once a full forensic investigation showed there was no evidence of any bodies in the wreck they would guess where he was headed. Myfair, Mrs Pratt and the baby had suddenly disappearing at the same time would also provide a few clues as to what was going on.
So he was probably not going to have long if he wanted to enjoy a few days at home, which was a similar time frame to the one suggested by Wisneski a few days earlier. Still, that’s what he wanted to do. Go home. For better or worse, home had always been the place where he felt safest and at peace with himself. He suddenly realised how lucky he had been in his life, even as he also realised it would be lost to him for an unknown period, he had such a beautiful and secure place to call home.
A place where his roots were deep in the ground. It was almost a spiritual thing he had only recently realised the importance of as it registered it could all be lost to him. Now he understood how it was for all those who had their land, their mana stripped from them. But at the same time he understood he had choices that others did not and, if he played his cards right, the ability to set the agenda rather than have to respond to the actions of others.
So, he was going to go home. Trouble would find him eventually and he recognised clearly that staying on the farm was not a long-term solution for him. With the MPU at his back he could hold off whoever indefinitely, but that was not a long-term solution either, and there would be a lot of collateral damage. At some point he was going to have to come to terms with some form of authority and set some ground rules for engagement.
At the end of the day, Bruce thought the MPU would support some kind of limited technology sharing agreement. The question was who would be sharing what and with whom to ensure all of humanity benefited, not just a select few movers and shakers who were more interested in their own well-being.
Mrs Pratt, Leaf and Myfair looked at him expectantly. He could almost sense the MPU doing the same thing, all of them waiting with bated breath for him to articulate his thinking and let them know everything was going to be okay and he had it all under control. If he could have, by the way he also looked at him expectantly, little Bruce was also asking the same thing of him.
Fuck it! he thought. “I want to go and spend some time at home. I know it might only be for a while and I will eventually have to make some more decisions about the future, but just for the moment I want to relax. What about you two?” he asked Myfair and Leaf.
Myfair looked as forlorn as he had for the last little while. His whole world was crumbling around him, and everyone he came into contact with, except for Bruce, seemed to be out to take advantage of him in one way or another and did not seem to understand the powers he had taken for granted all his life had been stripped from him by the MPU. This left a void in his life he had no idea how to fill. Nothing had prepared him for this situation. Previously, if someone like him had fallen out of favour he would simply have been terminated or if they were lucky, exiled. The MPU seemed to be torturing him for some reason even though it had helped him escape from the offworlders who had assaulted the hotel he had been resting in.
Leaf seemed far more animated, and Bruce detected a glint in her eyes which, surprisingly, sexually aroused him, although she had nothing to say.
He cocked a metaphoric questioning eye at the MPU. “Have you any better ideas where I might be able to hide out for the next few months until the asteroid gets here?” Bruce was still in the dark as to what the MPU really wanted with the asteroid, though still fairly sure the world was safe from it impacting the planet.
Not unless there is anywhere else in the universe you wanted to visit.
Not especially, Bruce thought. He could not shake the urge to simply go home. It might be the last time he could, so bugger the consequences in the few days that might be allowed to him.
What are the olds going to say when I turn up? Married one minute. The next thing I appear in command of a space patrol ship with a whole lot of people aboard. His mother would have a conniption.
“What should we do with Mrs Pratt?” Bruce asked.
The old woman still seemed to be in something of a state of shock Bruce could empathise with, from his recent experience in dealing with Skidians on their home planet, but he suspected he was far more resilient that Mrs Pratt.
The MPU had no an answer for him, and the two Skidians remained silent.
“Solves that problem then, Bruce,” Bruce said to himself and took his son from the arms of the barely responsive old woman, just in case she completely lost the plot and dropped the little mite on his head.
“I hope she doesn’t pop off on us,” Bruce said to the MPU.
I am monitoring her main health markers and will intervene if necessary. However, I suggest this woman undergoes anti-senescence treatment where we will be able to correct some of her health issues. She is in no immediate danger, the MPU added, without managing to really reassure Bruce in any way.
“OK, let’s go home and surprise the grandparents.” In the excitement of the last few days Bruce forgot that if he landed back at the farm right then he would get home hours before his parents who were still winging their way back from the States.
“Send us home when you are ready,” Bruce ordered and made himself comfortable on the seat the MPU conjured up for him.
Two
Ngaio Tauroa was beginning to feel the same way about Bruce’s dogs as her father, although he had not said anything to her about them specifically. Her father had not really elaborated on why he suddenly wanted her to feed the dogs and move the Harwood’s stock.
Clearly something had spooked him about the place. R
angi Tauroa, despite being a well-educated man of the land for his generation was still very traditional in many ways, quite superstitious, and seemed to become more spiritual as he got older. He had not moved very far off the farm in years and spent most of his spare time working on the local marae. Communing with his ancestors, he said to anyone who asked as he worked hard with other locals like Cyril Harwood to make the marae a resource for the whole community.
There was nothing specific about the Harwood place she was aware of that would lead him to behave the way he was at the moment. He and old Cyril had grown up and had spent a lot of time together over the years, roaming over the family properties that adjoined each other and further afield. There were no old pa sites on the Harwood land or any old burial sites she was aware of. Maybe he had stumbled over something else?
A shiver ran up her spine as she caught site of the creepy old heading dog staring at her. She felt like the dog was leering at her like some dirty old man. Like the dirty old bastard who had followed her around the supermarket the other day offering her money for companionship until she had told him to bugger off and threatened him with a whack around the head if he didn’t leave her alone.
The old dog drooled and leered at her exactly like the old man had and seemed to be able to speak directly into her mind. It completely unnerved her for a moment. Shit, she thought. No wonder Dad asked me to feed these mutts. They’re bloody spooky. Typical Bruce to have a team of weird, antisocial dogs.
Ngaio smiled fondly as she thought about Bruce. He had been like an older brother to her, in a way her own older siblings never had and never could be. Bruce had taken her under his wing at school and made sure his shy young neighbour was included in a wide range of activities and more importantly supplied transport around the relatively isolated community they were growing up in.
At times it seemed as they could have been more than de facto brother and sister. However, old Mavis Harwood had clearly disproved of their relationship. Ngaio had once overheard Mavis talking to another neighbour at a fundraising event to build a community hall at the marae, saying mixed marriages never worked. Ngaio never understood the context of the discussion but felt Mavis was talking about her and Bruce. The fact they were fundraising for a wider community facility was an irony apparently lost on Mavis at that moment in time.
Now, as a more mature woman and much more assertive than she had been in those days, she wished she had asked. Mavis’s disapproval of her was always evident in the way she spoke to her and her parents – always a hint of condescension in her dealings with them which was completely missing in old Cyril and in Bruce himself.
The Harwood and Tauroa families had been neighbours for generations and had helped each other out ever since the Harwoods had settled the district in the 1850s. Her mother and father had been invited to Bruce’s wedding but had declined. They didn’t like to travel these days. To be honest, her father hated to travel; her mother would love to have gone and had almost tagged along with the Harwoods and left her husband behind.
In hindsight, it was one of the major regrets of her young life that she had not been more tenacious in pursing her relationship with Bruce, despite any misgiving Mavis might have had. But at the time, she had felt sorry for the family, as their oldest son had just been killed in a car accident.
Bruce himself was certainly a bit rough around the edges, a bit wild in some ways, and a streak of melancholy ran through the Harwood family. But overall he was a good guy and had always treated her well and her parents with dignity and respect.
She sighed and looked at the old dog still contemplating her with a knowing look. Soon after the incident in the kitchen at the local marae, Bruce had left home to go to university and only returned at irregular intervals, and a year later she was off to university herself and her own journey of discovery.
Despite being close in Bruce’s last year or so of high school, they had rather quickly grown apart and had hardly spoken or even bumped into each other in the last few years. Now he was married so there was no hope of them getting together. She still sometimes hoped for that. She needed to do something for herself soon – she was not going to get into a long-term relationship out here. She knew her father had visions of her taking over the farm but she was not sure that would be the right move for her, at least in the short term. On the other hand, she was not sure how long her father could carry on and her brothers were not interested in the place, which was a huge disappointment to him. They only came up at Christmas these days it seemed, or when they felt like doing some hunting or fishing.
While she was contemplating this, Bruce’s dogs started barking, ignoring their food for the moment. Then old Cyril’s mutts joined in the cacophony and it was all on.
Ngaio jumped in surprise at the sudden racket and wondered what had set them off. Then she heard a baby cry. On second thoughts, it was not really crying, more of a startled gurgle of a momentarily surprised baby. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “What the …?”
“Hi, Ngaio. Fancy seeing you here. How’s it going?”
Ngaio turned around and was confronted by Bruce holding a baby in his arms. A baby she saw in that instant was almost the spitting image of the baby photos in the Harwood’s’ house. There was no doubt who the baby’s father was.
“Hi, Bruce …” Ngaio replied without stopping to question for the moment how Bruce could come to be standing there in front of her with a baby in his arms. She did not finish the sentence as she caught sight of Myfair, Leaf and Mrs Pratt seemingly materialising out of thin air behind him, something which could not be right at all. But she was at a loss to explain how they had got there.
Now Ngaio knew why her father had asked her to feed the dogs. There was something really odd going on at the Harwood property. She had humoured him but now she was discovering he had not been wrong.
“Who the hell are they?” Ngaio stuttered in consternation, pointing at the trio who had contrived to dress themselves in Skidian robes for the journey down to Earth. Bruce could understand Myfair and Leaf dressing like this, but Mrs Pratt? He’d have to have a word with them about trying to be a little less conspicuous otherwise people would start to ask questions. Their neighbours, like inhabitants of small communities the world over, took a lot of interest in the goings-on in the district, making sure everyone knew their version of events.
“Oh just some friends of mine; we’re just passing through for a few days.”
“What about your wife?” Ngaio asked. “And how did you get here?”
“I don’t have a wife,” Bruce replied as a diversionary tactic, taking Ngaio by the hand and leading her towards the house in case she started to ask too many questions about their teleporting in. “Let’s go and have a cup of tea and I’ll explain everything to you. Or at least I’ll try and explain everything to you.”
While Bruce led Ngaio to the house, the others surveyed the scene. It was totally foreign to all three of them. Except when the two Skidians had been on separate patrol missions, and for a few short months on Skid when most of the Skidian population had been almost annihilated, they, like Mrs Pratt, had always lived in an environment teeming with people going about the business of life. Now they were confronted and a little intimidated by a landscape that seemed empty before them and, by their own standards and experience, undeveloped and almost primal. They stood on a small rise at the end of a steep-sided valley. Behind them, down a gentle incline, was a large expanse of open water with the shoreline of the other side of the harbour in the distance.
The landscape seemed completely devoid of life apart from Bruce’s dogs and some others they didn’t recognise.
Then there was this new female offworlder who Bruce seemed to know extremely well. Like Sue, she also had a much darker skin than his own. Myfair wondered whether Bruce had some kind of a predilection for dark-skinned women. He knew there were plenty of white-skinned woman on this planet for him to choose from and many who were darker than Sue. Males,
it seemed, had plenty of choice, though from the limited exposure Myfair had had of the offworld culture, relationships between people of different colours that Bruce seemed to take for granted were the exception rather than the rule.
After a few moments gazing about at his new surroundings Myfair recognised signs of other life around him. The hills were dotted with a number of small white creatures and he could also see a group of larger animals that appeared remarkably like the ivops Bruce had captured back on Skid, though they lacked the single horn projecting from their nose the Skidian ivops displayed.
Gazing about at the hills with the livestock and the buildings clustered a short way away, it slowly dawned on Myfair what this place was. This was an offworld ‘farm’. Bruce had modelled the experimental unit he had built on Skid on this place.
What still struck him was the absence of any noise, apart from the dogs ripping into the hunks of meat and biscuits they had just been fed.
Myfair suddenly ducked as he caught site sight of a shape hurtling towards him out of the corner of his eye. A seagull landed on one of the kennels, hoping for a titbit. Myfair recognised the bird as similar to the ones feasting on the bodies of Skidians who had died and in some cases been burnt to death – when Skidian society disintegrated after the synthetic food plants which had fed everyone had failed and pretty well the entire population had perished in the resulting famine.
Then he looked at the birds a little closer and realised they were exactly the same kind of bird he had disturbed when he returned to Skid after depositing the offworlders back on this planet and stumbled over large numbers of dead, decomposing bodies. How could that be? he wondered.1
The Lifeboat Page 20