by Bob Mauldin
She looked from one man to the other and took a deep breath. “I have some definite ideas about the meeting and negotiations, so I want in. And if you want to talk, Doctor, I am more than happy to oblige you as long as you feel it necessary. Does that make the two of you happy?”
Simon nodded and the doctor said, “That brings up the last topic for discussion today. If Galileo follows her normal routine, she will finish Libra, go to Earth, pick up crew for ship number three, take them out to the commissioning, then go back to Earth again for more. Rumor has it that Libra will be finished sometime in July 2013, and two more ships will be ready by August or September. Sometime before then, I would like to get off. What I have in mind is to get off at your next visit to Earth, and work on getting some replacements for myself and crew doctors for some of the other ships and bases. Psychiatrists and psychologists, too. Believe me, as the population grows, so will the problems. I’d try to be prepared if I were you.”
Simon, having heard rumors himself about people beginning to get tired of tin can living, was anxious to get these agreements in place and functioning. Not just for the Alliance, but for the members thereof. His people needed to be able to come and go with the freedom of anyone else. “You bet, Doctor. Just remember that there won’t be any agreements in place when you get back. No protection for you until we can get it negotiated. You’ll be running some pretty big risks, especially since you’re a doctor. As long as you’re informed, I don’t have any problem with you leaving. I’ve said from day one that no one is a prisoner here. Besides, you’ll keep your wristband, and if any ship is in orbit, you’ll have assistance as quickly as we can. We do appreciate your help in getting replacements, too. Maybe one day, you’ll want to come back to us. There will always be a place for you. You know that.” Shaking the doctor’s hand, Simon headed for the door, Kitty at his side.
The two made their way to the observation bubble situated above deck one. As they sat there watching the construction pods add one hull section after another to the habitat section of Libra, and watched shuttles and Mambas come in and drop loads of asteroidal material into the smelter, Simon finally reached down and took Kitty’s hands in his. He held them up so he could see the angry red welts of the healing wounds and gently kissed each hand. “Honey, I’m sorry.” Kitty looked up when she heard the emotion in his voice and was stunned to see tears running down his face.
She pulled her hands free of his, grabbed his head, pulled him to her and kissed him. “Just what is it you think you have to apologize to me for, you big idiot?”
“For putting you in command of Heinlein in the first place, even though I knew I needed somebody there I could trust. I could have put somebody else in charge. I’m sorry for putting you into a position where a gentle nature like yours winds up going through the trauma that I put you through. I’m sorry for thinking that there was no chance that you would ever run into a bogey out there that we would have to take out. I’m sorry that it all came down on your shoulders. I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m sorry that...” Here he ran down and couldn’t say anything more, the tears running down his face as Kitty pulled his head to her shoulder.
“Listen, you,” she scolded. “I’m as much to blame as you are. I didn’t have to accept a commission, I didn’t have to go out there, I didn’t have to go looking for Toni’s killers, and I didn’t have to give the commands when we found them. I chose to do all those things. I can’t say that if I had known where the first choice would have led that I would have agreed to any of it, but I did and here we sit today. Now, I’m going to tell you something else. I’m going to repeat a saying so old I should be beaten for dredging it up. But it’s true: ‘What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.’ And, Honey, it didn’t kill me. And I do believe I’m stronger. Doctor Penn gets to make the final decision on that, but I do think I’m stronger. I’ve had some long talks with myself and some longer talks with Doctor Penn.
“People think that I think the long talks I had out there were with a ghost, but I know it was just my subconscious. Everybody knows you can’t talk to ghosts, so Toni wasn’t really there. I know this. But the things “she” said to me in that cockpit, and Honey, when I say that, I put she said in quotation marks, ‘cause she didn’t say them. But the things said to me were things you had said for real, and other people had said before any of this ever got serious. Especially the one about if you’re going to pull a gun on somebody, you had better be ready to use it. Well, I was out there in a damn warship loaded with guns, and I pointed ‘em at someone. They called my bluff and I had to use ‘em. Or lose all my people. I’ve come to terms with that. I think I came to terms with it in the Mamba that day. I’m not saying I’m ready to go back out there ... yet. But you don’t have to treat me like I’m going to fall apart. So let’s get on with doing the things we need to do.
“Now, at some point, you were talking about a meeting with the Vice-President of the United States. Tell me about it, Dear. Who brought the message? How do we know it’s genuine? If we’ve got plans to make, lets start making them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Reporters, at least those few worthy of the name, the ones who did more than just read the pre-digested pap handed out in press releases, began to stretch long-unused muscles and started investigations of their own. The mysterious mass disappearances of two years ago, and one year ago, and the reappearances of some of these same people made for stories with all the items necessary to wring a week’s worth of ratings out or even more. Especially if there really was something to this. Those same reporters dug deeper into the files concerning the mysterious mass-disappearances and came up with virtually nothing. The group of persons reported missing around that time, and it was a sure bet that not all disappearances had been reported, numbered in the hundreds. Some estimates said almost eight hundred people disappeared the first time. Those numbers were about the same for the second round.
Relatives had been questioned, friends tracked down and questioned, habits looked at with greater scrutiny as the numbers of missing increased. Three sets of disappearances had passed by, and each time, some eight months later, most would reappear making wild claims and performing amazing tricks on-camera. Only, the numbers of missing were rising and spreading out from Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.
Most of the missing were young; early-to-mid-twenties, some few were older. Males out-numbered females by a fair margin, most religious affiliations were represented, including a few who were referred to as practicing atheists. Race didn’t seem to be a big factor as the numbers were crunched and the data analyzed, percentages falling within a range that kept investigators stumped. As did the entire case, even when viewed from a distance. The only things that even remotely linked most of the missing persons together was an interest in science fiction. Tie that into the magic tricks and stories and the bare bones of a story began to emerge. There was also the fact that the larger, younger group had a fairly high percentage of college students, a specific that raised eyebrows each time, but faded away like so many other speculations. A whoop and a holler was raised, and three months later, in the press of other matters of global or political significance, the lack of further evidence effectively excised the incident from the daily memory of the public-at-large.
Beyond that, nothing. Oh, the reports were signed and filed under “open, pending,” but until any more leads turned up, there wasn’t much for the local authorities to do. And a by-product of the initial investigation turned up several drug dealers, one chop-shop and a fake ID ring.
Now, again, some missing persons had returned and were telling the same amazing stories. Not all of the missing, of course, but the stories seemed to be consistent with previous events. In a variety of places all around the United States, a fair percentage of those missing persons had turned up, purportedly claiming to have been voluntarily taken aboard a spaceship and made a part of the crew. And each time they returned they were looking for recruits, volunteers they c
alled them, to join up. Three distinct sets of disappearances, almost the same number each time and a couple of more isolated mass disappearances. When all the numbers were added up, some reporters were looking at numbers in excess of two thousand people.
It had already been seen on television a number of times, people appearing and disappearing just like Star Trek. And tied into all of this was the rumor that the recent disappearances, so painstakingly coordinated as to happen in over two hundred locations around the country simultaneously, were a response to the arrival of the returnees.
Editors, being who editors are, have to look at the bottom line, first, last and always. Sometimes a political nudge can be given, although the fourth estate is supposed to be impartial. After all, everybody does what they do based on their own principles, and those principles will reflect themselves in their daily lives. Editors try to run their papers on common sense, too. The tabloids were the ones supposed to be handling stuff like these editors were receiving. Nobody was going to advertise in a paper that ran space ship stories as sensational as these were looking to be.
But editors, some of them, had principles as well, and did run the stories, causing a particular late-night talk show host to say, “You heard it here first, several months ago. Just now reaching the mainstream media is the fact that hundreds of our people are in space building ships and bases right now!”
The President’s press secretary issued hot denials of government involvement, pointing the finger at over-zealous agents of the super-secret DIA as possibly being responsible for the recent reported mass round-ups of citizens all around the country.
It took the persistence of one young reporter to actually get one of the recent returnees to talk to her on camera. Add to that the I-just-don’t-give-a-damn attitude of a retiring senior editor who felt that the story needed to be told damn the consequences and the genie was taken fully out of the bottle. “This is Monica Webb, Channel Eight News,” the reporter said into the camera. She stood in an anonymous room that could have been anywhere, beside a young man dressed in all black, strange insignia sparkling from his collar, unfamiliar patches on his shoulders. “Can you tell me your name, sir?” she asked, poking the microphone toward him.
“John Winston,” the twenty-ish man said simply.
“The same John Winston who just up and disappeared from home, college and friends almost two years ago?”
Yes, Ma’am.”
“Are you in any way connected with the disappearances of almost eight hundred other people about the same time?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Getting a little tired of the short answers, the reporter tried a different tactic, in hopes of getting more out of this opportunity. “Please, Mr. Winston, explain your relationship to so many people.”
“Well, Miss…?”
“Webb.”
“Miss Webb, I and all of the others are volunteers, I guess you’d call us. We got an opportunity to do something no humans have ever done before, and that is to build a factory in outer space.”
“In outer space, you say.” The reporter looked at the camera. The what-do-I-do-now look was classic to behold, even though she had watched the earlier reports avidly. “Building a factory. If that is the case, Mr. Winston, how is it that the government from the local level all the way up has been looking for you and all of the others for years, now? If you were doing what you say, wouldn’t they have to know about your whereabouts and if nothing else, cover it up to keep it secret?”
The young man smiled. “Who said they don’t know what I was doing, Miss Webb? I think that they are probably more anxious to find me than you were, to tell the truth.”
“Are you telling me that the government isn’t involved in what you’re doing? That this is a private venture?” The startled sound of the young woman’s voice was obvious.
“Yes, Ma’am, entirely.” the young man affirmed, seeming more comfortable in front of the camera as time went by. “More or less, that is,” he added by way of qualification. “You see, to be able to do all that we have to do, build the factories and then the ships that they are being constructed to build, we need to have some form of regimentation just so we will know who has to be where when and who’s in charge once we all arrive, you see? So we are actually pretty militaristic when you get right down to it. We have rank and all of that stuff.”
“So what you are wearing is a uniform, then.” The words came out as a simple statement. “All of your people wear something more or less identical to what you have on right now?” She paused for a second and Winston nodded. “Can you tell me the significance of your outfit and the symbols on it?”
“Certainly,” the man said. “The shirt, pants, shoes and hat are black and we call it a uniform. The piping around the collar and shirt sleeves tells people your department. I wear blue because I’m in the Engineers. He fingered the collar so that the small metal insignia showed better. “I’m a Lieutenant, so I wear a golden crescent moon.” He turned one shoulder to the camera showing a circular patch. “This shows that I am a member of the Galileo’s crew,” he turned the other shoulder, “and this is the emblem of the Terran Alliance.” The camera zoomed in on an also-round patch, showing a ship leaving what was obviously a representation of the planet Earth.
“Would you explain for our viewers just what the Galileo is, please?”
“Well,” the young man said sheepishly, “this is the part people are going to have a hard time believing, but the Galileo is a spaceship, built by an unknown race, for the sole purpose of establishing colonies around this part of the galaxy.”
“When you say unknown race, do you mean aliens, as in little green men?”
The Lieutenant smiled. “Well, we actually think that they are rather tall and red, but yeah, that’s pretty much the idea.”
“How is it that you get to be aboard an alien ship, Lt. Winston?” The reporter looked like she had swallowed a bitter pill, clearly expecting something other than the revelation she got. Or at least hoping for something different.
“Well, you see, it was found by the Captain. Exactly how, I’m not sure. Like he met one of the aliens or something,” the Lieutenant said, obviously more taken with the pretty young reporter than he was willing to admit. He dragged his attention back to the camera with difficulty. All things considered, she was a rather attractive woman.
The reporter, perhaps sensing an opportunity slipping away, asked, “And why are you back at this particular time, Lt. Winston?”
The young Lieutenant felt his own moment approaching. He had been briefed a bit on what to say if this happened. Along with everyone else in his department on the way back to Earth. Of course there was going to be some attention. This was his chance to do something. “We’re back here on another recruiting mission. We’re supposed to talk to our friends and see if we can get any takers on joining up.”
“But you already have, by our estimates, nearly two thousand people, Lt.” Winston grinned to himself. He was letting her lead him right where he wanted to go. “How many more do you need?”
“Miss Webb, remember I said that we built a factory out in space?” The reporter nodded silently, a slightly dazed look on her face. “Well, we’ve actually started construction on the third factory and left almost five hundred people out there to run it. Space ships don’t build themselves, you know. And they don’t run themselves, either. After finishing the second base, we came to Earth and picked up enough to go crew the first ship out of the first factory. Now, we need to get more volunteers to go build another factory to build more ships. The Captain says we’ll have four in all.”
The reporter looked at the camera. “Four factories. At five hundred each that will be putting two thousand people in space! How do you expect the government to react to all of this?”
“That’s two thousand just for the factories, Ma’am. Then you figure in the crew of the Galileo, which is just over nine hundred, and the first ship at alm
ost five hundred, as well as the second, and the base figure is closer to four thousand, right now. Then you figure in two ships per year per base and you come up with about two thousand people each year that we need to recruit after the last base is finished. There are more people born each minute than that.”
Miranda Webb thought of a question she thought might crack the veneer of confidence this young man exuded. He had been well-briefed, and obviously believed what he was saying, but she was betting that he hadn’t figured on the political ramifications. “How do you think the government is going to react when this news gets out? If they don’t already know, they will when this interview airs. How do you think the American government is going to react to a bunch of its citizens acquiring technology of this level and not turning it over to them?”
“Of course they aren’t going to like it, they already don’t,” the young Lieutenant said, causing the reporter’s mouth to drop open. “They say that they should have it because they know better how to deal with alien technology than we do. But it’s going to take them, the government, a long time to realize that in this era of global communication, that if they did get control of it, the whole world will lose because of it.”
Before he could take a breath and continue, the reporter asked, “Are you saying that you people will blow the ship up or something?”
“No, Ma’am,” Winston said decisively. “The problem is that no government on this planet could let any other have that much of a technological advantage. The balance of power can’t be allowed to shift so strongly in favor of any country or the whole world would go up in flames. The only solution is to keep it out of the hands of governments on Earth who would use the technology primarily for political or military advantage.”