3012: The Artifact

by John M Grier

  ~***~

  Jack discovered that driving the hovercraft with the trailer attached was certainly a challenge. It simply was not designed to allow a wheeled vehicle to be attached to it. “What we need is another hovercraft to haul the trailer” he said.

  “Yeah, well, we don’t have one, so quit complaining” said Paul.

  They had traveled quite a distance, but far short of their hopes. However, even at this snails pace, they would be there by the next evening, assuming nothing went wrong. In fact, in another few hours, they should be on the ice and could attach the skis to the trailer and that may actually make it easier.

  And, as it turned out, it was much easier on the ice. They had continued moving in a northward direction until they encountered the ice in Canada. Once there, they attached the skis and turned to the east.

  Both happy that their journey was nearly complete, they began chatting again in lieu of the absolute silence they had been traveling in for some time now. Out of the blue, Paul said “Dinosaurs.” He looked over at his friend and smiled. “Jack, if this time machine of yours really exists, I would love to see real live dinosaurs.”

  Jack burst out laughing. After hours of silence, Paul wanted to talk about dinosaurs. Well, he was, after all, an archaeologist. “I have never traveled that far into the past, Paul, but I don’t see why it would be a problem, although traveling a mere thousand years in the future certainly has been.” He thought a moment and said “We may need bigger guns, though.”

  Laughing as well, Paul said “You’re probably right. Although this little mystery adventure we’ve found ourselves on is certainly fascinating, and I want to pursue it to the end, I don’t see where a little side-trip will hurt as a diversion. Like you said, Jack, with a time machine we can take our time and still get things done in a hurry.”

  With the dreamy gaze of a young girl, Suzie said “I just want to see Jack’s castle in the Bahamas. It sounds very interesting.”

  Paul said “You never told me about the castle, Jack.”

  “Well, we seem to have plenty of time at the moment” said Jack. He paused while composing his thoughts before beginning. Eventually, he said “After I hit the lottery, it occurred to me that a base of operations, of sorts would be in order. Although I could live indefinitely on the boat, an actual home would be nice. I decided to give this some real thought, not just some off the wall idea that happened to pop into my head.

  “All of my life I had been fascinated with pirates as well as castles. Now that I was the captain of a ship, which would make a great pirate ship by the way, perhaps a castle was in order…but where? Obviously, somewhere at the shore would be ideal. Then the thought finally came to me. I would buy an island somewhere in the Caribbean. I had, after all just won the lottery, remember?

  “The ideal place would be somewhere I could build a stone castle that also had a protected harbor. A natural source of fresh water as well as fruit trees would be perfect. After a few days of searching, I discovered that The Bahamas had many private islands throughout its chain of more than 700 islands. The island I found was a private island with no one currently occupying it as a home.

  “It took a bit longer to finally narrow down the list of owners to a corporation based in Chicago that actually owned the island. A quick internet search of the corporation that stood, at the moment, between me and what I was sure would be MY island, turned up some good news. It seems that this particular corporation was not doing well financially. I decided a trip to Chicago was in order.

  “After further sleuthing, I made the best discovery thus far. The corporation I was about to visit had acquired this island after taking over another company and had not visited it or inquired of it, as far as I could tell.

  “As the recent lottery winner of a payoff as large as mine, it was rather easy to get a meeting arranged as a potential investor. It also didn’t take long to find out they were clueless about the island’s very existence. I figured to just go for it and if I happened to make a massive financial blunder, I could always utilize my time machine to go back and do it over.

  “I made them a modest offer that was slightly higher than what was originally paid. After what seemed like a short time for an amount of money this large, I had a deed in hand for my island. As I was flying back to West Palm Beach to retrieve the Time Awaits, I came up with a name for my island. I would call it Destiny. I had always heard that you create your own destiny and in my case, I had the tools to do that and then some!”

  Paul interrupted, saying “Destiny? Do you mean like the city named Destiny on the south eastern part of North America? I think you would know it as Atlanta, Georgia.”

  “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t heard of the city by the same name, but I do know where Atlanta is.” He composed himself again and continued his story. “I made my way to Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas, and managed to register a name change for my new island. Mission accomplished, I set sail for Destiny.

  “Once there, I set out to explore. My new island was very small, but actually large for a privately owned island. It was about one mile by perhaps two and a half and rather square in shape. There was a natural harbor near one end that backed up to a mountain. Okay, mountain is obviously the wrong word, but it was a hill that rose several hundred feet above sea level.

  “I climbed the hill and found a parcel of land at the top that was about five or six acres, flat and more or less cleared. I could think of no more perfect place for a large, stone, medieval castle to be built.

  “I spent the rest of the day exploring the island and found nothing more to note, except for a few broken ship pieces scattered on the west side of the island. I did, however, locate a fresh water spring near my desired location for my home.

  “I spent the night on board the Time Awaits pondering the events of the past few weeks. It occurred to me that night that I had neglected my job. Granted, I didn’t need it any longer, but I should do them the courtesy of actually resigning. Also, they still had all my worldly possessions, except for the boat and what was in my suitcase. I know it wasn’t much, but there were a few things I had that held some sentimental value.

  “The next morning, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to back up a few weeks so I could report back to base on time. I submitted my resignation, effective immediately, and packed my few meager belongings. In less than an hour, I was back out to sea and up to date, so to speak.

  “My next order of business was locating a stone mason willing to build in such a remote location. Although, even properly motivated by the big pile of cash I was paying, it still took a bit of time to find a contractor. I located a company in Tennessee that specialized in large custom buildings. I called them and explained what I wanted. After several hang ups, I finally convinced them I was legitimate. They agreed to meet with me in Miami and I would transport them to the island, which I could get to in a day.

  “They spent the better part of three days surveying and measuring and taking soil samples and doing stuff I honestly had no idea about. The evening of the third day, they came to me with a proposal. Quietly thinking to myself that money was no problem, I still didn’t want to make them suspicious so I had to go through the hassle of negotiating for a better deal. Once we agreed on a price, they said they could start in six weeks.

  “I had my castle built to what my idea of a castle should be. It had massive stone walls, medieval battlements, a drawbridge that worked and a moat. Now, the moat was frivolous, since I was located on a tropical island, so I made the moat into a lazy river of sorts and constructed as a circular swimming pool. Actually, I got the idea for the moat from an amusement park attraction I visited once as a child.

  “Inside, I had every imaginable convenience and electronic advancement I could think of. It even had secret passages! All in all, it was the perfect home for someone that fancies himself a pirate capable of traveling through time.”<
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  Paul said “I’ll bet you have some great stories to tell about your adventures, Jack.”

  “Yes, I suppose I have had more than my fair share of adventures.” The two of them rode in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Jack said “It also occurs to me that I still didn’t get a good look at the lighting back in those caves we traveled through. I was hoping to figure out what it was. You never know when something like that will come in handy.”

  Noticing something other than ice in front of them, Paul said “Jack, check out the horizon, I think we may be in trouble. That certainly looks to me to be a government welcoming committee. It looks like Janet has been tracking me again and these cards that allow us to roam about the countryside have a restriction about ‘official government areas.’ What do you suggest we do?”

  Suzie spoke up instead saying “Guys, I have an idea that just might work. I can assume the role of a Government Protocol Officer and we can try to bluff our way past her. It is quite possible, based on her previous actions when she came after Paul before, that she has not done all of her research. She most likely is not alone and if we can instill enough doubt into everyone else, she may just leave.”

  Jack said “That might work, and I can think of no other options, short of shooting her, which I would rather not do. But, it occurs to me that she may know of every Protocol Officer in Harmony. Who will you be?”

  Paul said “She could be herself, using that Australian accent of hers and be someone that just transferred to Harmony from say, Alice Springs.”

  Jack said “Okay, we can try that, but if it falls through, we should have a back up plan.”

  Paul said, “Jack, the only problem I can see is with Janet’s legal sense. Since she officially closed this dig, there is no way she would let us come back in. She would never buy it. What we should do is tell her we are heading for another dig, your boat. That way, she can’t say anything.”

  “Okay, I don’t like it, but it does get me much closer to my boat. But, I have to warn you Paul, if something threatens to close us down, I will do whatever I have to in order to keep my boat out of their hands.”

  “I can live with that” said Paul.