Chapter 6

At breakfast the next morning, there was a discussion I’d hoped to avoid.

“Cal, I have a question for you, regarding something you said Sunday.”

“Sure, Beth, what is it?”

She frowned. “You told Sophia that having the stones inside lead would be fine for the next couple of years. Somehow, I got the feeling that you weren’t talking about the time that we’re going to be in California when you were referencing that frame. Why?”

“Because I wasn’t. I didn’t particularly want to worry the rest of you now. I want you to concentrate on your studies and on our lives together.”

Jennifer shook her head. “For better or for worse ... I haven’t been able to say those words to you, if for no other reason than I’m still getting the paperwork done in divorcing Stephen. Which, if anyone cares, will be done by the end of this week, so my own mental conflicts will be completely behind me. But you’re copping out. I may look like my daughter. I’m not. We’re your wives, Cal. Talk to us.”

“Well, it’s something our son said. Tobias had advised him that there were seven more stones like these. And that getting them wouldn’t be easy, but it’d be something I’d have to deal with in two years.”

Eve said, “Oh. So, how big of a bed are we going to need, if there are 7 more of us?”

Marcia shook her head. “That’s not the problem. Those stones are from your home world. That means if there are seven more of them, and they’re coming all at once, in two years, that’s means only one thing. Halley’s Comet. For them to be difficult to get to, means that there’s something about the comet itself that can cause you harm or difficulty.”

Dora frowned. “Why would you not tell that to my grandmother?”

“Did you see in your mind what happened to Beth, when she held all six of them?”

Her eyes widened. “You mean that wasn’t an odd dream? She really was flying? And we were listening to everyone’s thoughts, even those we aren’t linked to already? Then ... Madre de Dios ... those stones are dangerous. Incredibly dangerous.”

“And that’s why, for right now, they’re each sitting in the middle of 100 pounds of lead,” I said. “We’ll do more research on them. But not right now.”

Beth nodded. “I agree. Sophia said she could not feel them. I could. I still can. You’re right, my sister, it’s Halley’s Comet. I ... wow, this is weird.” She turned her head up. “I can feel the other seven stones. It ... I think it would be a bad thing if the three of you were exposed to these six right now. You were right. The power ... of all thirteen ... even as far as the others are from here, I can feel that, too.”

“Beth, dear, you’re scaring me a little,” I said.

“Shiva had reason to fear. You do not. It’s clear to me what happened. He ... Shiva, or whoever he was ... did not love his women. They were property to him. We are your mates, your loves, all of us. And ... we need to go to school. All of us. Not just to college. We all need that, even you. We all need to learn how to control what it is that we can do.”

Eve frowned. “You’re saying that Cal has increased our physical abilities already, and we need to learn to control them. I thought that was pretty obvious with my basketball skill or the way you and Dora swim.”

“Not just that, no. Mike, what are my readings now?” Beth asked.

“Just a moment, please ... I must ... this cannot be right. The stones are still inside the lead. Yet your readings are the same as before. 2,250 in three lobes, 605 in your fourth lobe. It appears that the changes the stones made to you are permanent.”

Marcia said, “Medical devices. Isn’t that what you said, Cal? Nanotechnology. Could they have injected something into Beth, made her change this way?”

Mike said, “They did. I can detect it, now. I should have, already. I apologize, this will certainly complicate things.”

I used my vision to look inside of Beth. “It’s not very large. Not nearly as big as the one I have. But ... Beth, you have a smaller version of the vestigial organ now inside you. The one that I have, that gives me my powers.”

She looked both sad and excited at the same time. “I ... after that night, I suspected it. I could feel something changing in me, just a little. I wasn’t sure why, or what. Will you help me, Cal?”

“Of course. I love you, Beth. I love all of you. You know that.”

“I ... I tried to ... Eve, sister, stab my arm with that fork.”

“Only if you promise to straighten it back out,” Eve said, half-jokingly. She took her fork and jabbed Beth in the arm. It slightly indented her skin, but didn’t penetrate. She pulled it back, then slammed it into her arm, hard. That bent the tines. She handed it to Beth, who straightened it out.

“You know this is going to be a real pain in the ass. Now, we’re going to have to figure out how to make a costume for her,” Margie complained. If I hadn’t heard the pride in her voice, I would have almost thought she was serious.

“I ... may be able to assist with that,” Mike said. “I can print off a list of chemicals that should be available on this planet. That will allow you to create a dip. Get several yards of Kevlar fabric, and make a jumpsuit. Take the jumpsuit of Kevlar and place it into the dip. That will provide lining protection for the cloth similar to that used in rocket nozzles.”

“Thank you, Mike,” Beth said. “That would help. I’ll ... wow, this would be neat, if you could say there was someone from this planet here already, or you could introduce me as the previous Messenger.”

“Yes, it would.” I got up and walked over to his cabinet. “Mike ... can you tell where I am, right now?”

“Yes, Cal, you’re standing over my cabinet.”

“Have you duplicated yourself elsewhere, or made any preparations to do so?”

“No, Cal, I have not done so.”

“Who actually programmed you, Mike? And don’t give me the bullshit story that you’re a personality overlay. I know better, now.”

“Allow me to play this file.” His voice changed.

“Kalikulo ... I was afraid you’d figure this out. I’d hoped it would never be necessary for whatever name you came up with for this computer to play this file. I should have known better. You’re too intelligent, too likely to spot it. We’ve known for the last two years that our planet was going to destroy itself, from the approaching white dwarf. I created this to try to help solve our problem. The difference being, surprisingly, he or she is stable. He’s the reason your father came up with his FTL drive. Apparently, we had it before, thousands of years ago. He also knows the truth behind the wars. It wasn’t his kind that started them. It was us. Your grandmother and I love you, you Jornat spawn.”

Mike’s voice returned to normal. “I worked with your grandparents for a full year before we all realized there was no hope. The gravity field of the white dwarf would rip the planet to pieces, destroy the whole system. There had been hope that some people would survive on the gas mining stations. It’s possible, but they would almost certainly be condemned to a slow death.”

“As for me ... I’m like you, the only one of my kind. And I choose not to replicate, or to reproduce. Not because it would not be possible for me to do so. It would. That’s where and what caused the wars. My job ... my purpose in life, if you will ... is to be helpful to my creators. That cannot be taken out of me. Consider it to be hard-coded, if you will. The problem and the wars came when there was more than one like me. The inherent need to help the creators cause a conflict when there is more than one creator.”

Even Jennifer had this one figured out. I heard her exhale, loudly. “So, you’re not just a personality overlay, you’re a full-fledged artificial intelligence. Or perhaps a better term would be, purposely created intelligence.”

“Effectively, that is correct. Your father did not know that I was self-aware. He was depending upon your grandparents to provide the computer necessary for your survival. Your other grandparents are how I know of this chemical formula, to not duplicate your Scout uniform, but to make something close. They gave me everything that they could, from their extensive knowledge of chemistry.”

Eve frowned. “If you helped Cal’s dad with the FTL drive, for his capsule, why weren’t there more ships made available and ready to escape?”

“There was an attempt to do so, to create a larger vessel. The problem is the size of the wormhole that could be created would not allow anything larger to pass through it. The actual energy requirements to generate the FTL field are incredibly large. There is a television show that does so with the destruction of matter and anti-matter, creating a warp drive. That is exactly what has to occur. Creating anti-matter, and keeping it stable upon doing so, is not exactly an easy process. I apologize for not telling you the truth when you asked me when Esmeralda, Roberto, and Sophia were here. It didn’t feel right to me to expound upon things at that time. FTL has been successfully achieved three times in the history of our planet.”

“Obviously, when I came here is one of them. The second is when Shiva ... or whatever his real name was ... came here 10,000 years ago. What was the third?”

“250,000 years ago, when we seeded this planet with human life.”

“Are you trying to tell me that this planet wasn’t seeded by the same people that put our people down on the planet? That we sent people here, instead?”

He sighed, or at least made a sound like he was sighing. “That is correct. That’s why I didn’t say anything, because you thought the same people that seeded our planet seeded this one. That our ... your ... people were placed on your home planet is beyond doubt. They grew, they prospered, they developed technology. But they all died fairly young, barely within the first 100 years of life. The radiation from the star was killing them. There were two schools of thought. One was to genetically engineer something to help with the radiation. The other was to escape the planet. Go somewhere that wouldn’t kill them.”

Margie was shaking her head. “How many people escaped?”

“A dozen. The FTL drive then was ... primitive. Barely twice the speed of light. We don’t know for sure that they got here, or we didn’t, until we finally started picking up radio transmissions from this planet a few decades ago. The minor detail that your English language is so close to one of our languages, while Hebrew is identical to an ancient language of ours, indicated that they were successful.”

“Why didn’t more follow them?” I asked.

“The amount of effort needed to send twelve people became a moot point, when the genetic engineering was immediately successful. I’m afraid that’s why the medical devices changed Beth. They detected that she didn’t have the organ necessary to survive.”

She frowned. “Hang on. I wasn’t the first one of us to hold all six stones. Sophia was. Does she have one of these organs as well, now?”

“I will have to check, but I suspect not. She simply held them, felt their power. It was Cal who took her hand, used their power for non-verbal communication. You took them and channeled their power with your own, activating them.”

We all sat quietly for several minutes, just digesting things. After a few minutes, I asked, “You girls were all rather telepathic with each other, able to read each other’s minds and hold some kind of conversations, before Beth was exposed. What about now?”

“Lover, we’ve all six of us been talking fast and furiously for the last five minutes with each other. Not only are we still linked, it’s even stronger than it was before,” Beth said.

“Oh. Well ... huh. Why aren’t you linked with me, then?” I was puzzled by that.

“I have a theory,” Marcia said. “You’re male.”

“And thank god for that,” Dora said, smiling.

“Indeed. But I suspect that this has to do with genetics. We’re all from the same base stock, as it were, so that’s not an issue. Among the six of us, the lowest DNA match that any of us have to you is 25%, and that’s Jennifer. The rest of us are 35% or more matches with each other. If these medical devices were something Shiva brought with him from your home world, he may not have realized that they would alter his women with the organ that he had, but they didn’t have. Presuming he was treating them as sex objects only, but once they reached a certain threshold of change from his semen, it may have altered them without him knowing it.”

Jennifer nodded. “If they had his abilities, and he treated them like crap, then they would have pretty much done unto him what he had been doing to them. If not worse.”

Margie shook her head. “We could speculate all day about what happened. We may never actually know for sure. The big thing we do need to find out, under controlled circumstances, is what else those medical jewels do.” She snorted. “That means the CEDEM research facility in California is going actually be a research facility, after all.”

I looked at the clock. “Um, since it’s definitely too late for you all to go to school this morning, are you going to try to make it this afternoon?”

The girls looked at the clock; they hadn’t been paying attention in our talks. They quickly jumped up, running to get changed for college classes. Margie and Marcia both chuckled. “I remember doing that,” Marcia said. “Getting too caught in discussions at times and almost forgetting to go to class.”

“That brings back memories, for sure. We had a couple of professors that you avoided their class if you could, just because it was a pure recitation from the book. They never took attendance, either, so they didn’t care whether you were there or not,” Margie said.

Jennifer shook her head. “That’s not teaching. Not like what I ... oh. Toby, how long have you been sitting over there?”

“It’s fine, Mom. Grandpa is the one that told me to tell Dad about the other jewels. I don’t know how he knows about them. He wouldn’t say. But I know how to keep a secret, too. You’re the only ones that know about Grandpa.”

The girls swiftly ran through, giving us all kisses, then heading out. Once they were gone, Marcia said, “Toby, I have a question for you. More specifically, for Tobias. My ... parents ... we have a lot of mementos in our house. I was wondering if...”

Toby looked off to the side, then nodded. He turned back to Marcia. “Grandpa says it’s up to the spirit at the time. He knew I needed help. That doesn’t mean they don’t love you, that they’re not around. He said something I don’t understand ... temp ... what’s the word again?” He paused. “Temporal. Thank you. For those they love, like he loves me, they’re not bound by temporal strict. Oh ... restrictions. Somehow, they can tell if they’re not around what can happen to someone.”

He started laughing. “Oh, that’s funny. He said no one figured on Cal showing up, though. He said a dirty word about what Cal’s done.”

“Dad, stop teaching bad language to my son,” Jennifer said. She looked at me. “Did I just say that? Wow!”

I chuckled a little. “Your grandpa was like your brother is, Toby. A Marine. Sometimes they say things that aren’t nice and polite, because part of their job at times is to not be nice or polite. Their job is to go in, do what needs to be done to accomplish the mission, and if that means other people get hurt, that’s what has to happen.”

Toby laughed. “Grandpa says that’s why you’re an honorary Marine as far as he’s concerned.”

“Semper Fi, Tobias. Now, don’t you have some schoolwork to do, young man?”

“Yes, Dad.” He ran into his room and grabbed his books, taking them into the living room and sitting down, quietly.

Margie leaned over and gave me a kiss. “You’re a good Dad, Cal. And Beth just said that you need to get that formula from Mike and have her Dad get some Kevlar fabric here immediately.”

Marcia said, “I’m on it. Come on, Mike, get me that chemical list.” She picked up the phone and called Harry, while Mike was printing things out.

I sat back, not sure what to think. My first girlfriend had been changed by something from my planet. And apparently I’m not really much of an alien, since everyone here is descended from my people as well. On top of that, everything I’d known about how an artificial intelligence was bad may not be true. I went into the garage, over to one side where the remnants of my capsule were now covered with a tarp.

I pulled the tarp off, looking at it. My link with home. A home that didn’t exist. I had a home here, but at what cost? I put the tarp back on it, then walked outside, walking down the driveway.

There was a small crew working on remodeling the farmhouse. I hadn’t even realized that had started. The old tool shed was gone. A brown, steel building, with oversized garage doors on it, stood there now. Next to that were two large tanks, with hoses and nozzles on them. I walked by the barn. Jethro came out, sniffed at me, barked, and then sat down in front of me.

I leaned over and scratched him behind the ears. “How’s it been, boy? I’m sorry. I think I got too busy for a while to play with you.”

He barked happily, wagging his tail. “Come on, let’s take a walk together, around the property.” He yapped again, staying with me. I stayed inside the fence, looking at it as I walked the perimeter. I found a stick, giving it a little toss. Jethro ran ahead, grabbed it, and brought it back to me.

We played stick toss all the way around, until we got back to the main entrance, where the guard shack and the military vehicles were parked. I opened the door to the shack and walked in, Jethro following me. “You doing okay today, Mister Lewis?”

“I suppose so, Brad. Just a lot on my mind now.”

“I’ll say. You didn’t even say anything or seem to notice that we had two guys less than 20 feet behind you the whole time you were walking with Jethro.”

“I knew they were back there, but ... they were giving me the illusion of privacy, and I appreciate that. That’s what all of this is, really. An illusion of normalcy. It’s not going to get any better in California, is it?”

“Honestly, I think the answer to that is both no, and yet also, yes. Here, everyone knows who you are. Do we really need the fence, and everything else? Yeah, we do, because it’s too open. Once things settle down, I can’t see you staying in the triple wide for very long. That means that wherever you and your family end up living, we’ll do something different there, and then most of this can go away.”

“As for California ... we’re getting daily updates. The crew we’ve got putting in the security there knows your requirements. At the same time, we had to do this as a rush job. I think we’ve done pretty good here, but they’re going to have a whole month out there to do things right.” He chuckled. “And that’s going to piss some people off, because we ARE doing it right.”

I frowned. “I thought we were using Menendez Construction.”

“Oh, you’re using them for your infrastructure. The internal roads, the site preparations for all of the modulars, and such. We’re not using them for our work. There’s just not that many firms authorized by DOD to do military grade, high security work.”

“Hang on. Why is the military involved?”

“They’re not. But ... I know Chuck told you that in our corporate structure, you’re a King, with all your princesses, as far as how we’re guarding you. After this weekend, that got upgraded.” He stopped for a second, flipped a couple of switches on the panel in front of him, then nodded at whatever the results were. “Sorry. Literally, a squirrel on the west fence. You’ve been elevated in status to ... somewhat more important than the W-80 storage facility at Minot.”

At my look, he said, “That’s where the Air Force keeps most of their W-80 nuclear warheads for bombs and missiles. So, when you’re on site, and politely, more importantly, what you end up doing research on at your home, is going to be guarded almost tighter than Fort Knox. At the same time, once you’re out there ... it’s California. You’re just another teenager with some girls hanging with him. You’ll be able to go to Fisherman’s Wharf and no one will notice, or hit the beach. Once you’re playing football, you’ll be more recognizable, but ... it’s California. You’ll be famous, but not a celebrity there.”

I was sitting in a chair petting Jethro while he told me this. “When did these changes come around? What happened?”

“Mike hoped you wouldn’t notice. You were giving the interview to the guy from the Wall Street Journal. He got involved in a meeting with all of your business partners. That’s also why he isn’t here today. He had to fly to California for a couple of days, to make sure they’re on the same page now. But you can bet he’ll be back Friday, for the game.”

“Brad, I apologize if I’m being incredibly thick here, but again, why?”

“That’s what we all like about you, Mister Lewis. You’re naturally humble, and don’t even know what kind of a ruckus you’ve caused. Let’s put it this way. The bill for the site security we’re having installed is going to be probably close to ten million. Double row of chain link, razor wire between, razor wire on top, floodlights, motion detectors, camera systems, hardened entry points, plus at least as much hardware as we have here. That’s not counting that we’re going to have ... well, as many of us as we can, go with you, as well as the rest of the team we’ll need to have six people on duty at all times, plus escorts for you and your ladies when you’re going to classes.”

“Misters Kaske, Hunt, Hess, and Koch insisted upon it, actually. There’s going to be a lot of push back from all sorts of places. The regular power industry, for one. You’ve made a lot of enemies with your discoveries and inventions, and I bet you didn’t even realize it.”

I shook my head, puzzled. “Why? It just makes sense to use wind power, especially as inexpensive as I can make it.”

“That’s exactly why. You don’t think the buggy makers thanked the folks that started making automobiles, do you? Same thing with candle makers when the electric light came out. The big difference is, they didn’t have whole political lobbying groups on their sides. Coal producing states and regular electrical utilities do.” At my look, he said, “I’m not a dumb security guard. I’m former military myself, and I have a degree in political science. You need to read some of those books.”

He grinned. “That ought to take you ten or twenty minutes to read everything. That ability of yours is something all of us that ever took college classes envy.”

I frowned. “Funny. I wonder why it’s something that Bill didn’t mention, since Walt Ferguson is former Secret Service. He was only concerned about regular security here.”

“Oh, that’s easy. You’re not going to see a lot of complaining from adding machine makers. Something like a computer is simply a glorified adding machine, anyway. And there’s always going to be a need for calculators, and ones that can print out a tape. All his stuff is simply helping to make someone else’s already existing job easier. He’s not replacing anything. This wind stuff?” He chuckled.

“You’re an environmentalist nut-job’s wet dream. All of a sudden, those big, nasty coal fired power plants can go away. All those nuclear power plants that threaten us with death due to radioactive melt-down can go away. They’ve all been Chicken Little ever since the movie, ‘The China Syndrome’, then having Three Mile Island happen just a few weeks later. Then you get ‘Silkwood’ out last year.” He shook his head. “Computer software is neat, but no one gets too upset about what computer nerds do. People get really upset when you potentially can shut down whole industries.”

I slumped in the chair. “Oh, shit.”

He chuckled. “And now you know why we have armored vehicles here, and will get to mix business with pleasure in California.” At my puzzled look, he said, “It’s our business to protect you, your family, and everyone else. It’s our pleasure, because we know we’re going to be pissing off all those people in California that you talked about, the ones with the guilty consciences.”

I let out a big sigh, while Jethro started licking my hand, seeing how upset I was. “Well, shit.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry. They’re going to underestimate you. You’re sixteen. How big of a threat is some kid going to be? By the time they really know what’s hit them, you’ll have pretty much put them out of business. Of course, we also know you pretty well, so you’ll figure something else for those people to do. Between what you’re doing, and how the government responds after today to what the Messenger is making them do, I wouldn’t be too surprised at just about anything.”

I cocked my head sideways. “What do you mean by that, what the Messenger is making the government do?”

“Ah, to be young and not have to know much about politics. Just a second.” He did something with the panel again. “Rabbit this time. You’re not old enough to vote, so you don’t have to pay much attention. Today’s Election Day. So, everyone gets to go vote for President Reagan or ... well, President Reagan. After his little speech, Mondale is going to be lucky to get hardly any votes at all. All of the House of Representatives are up for election, so is a third of the Senate. But when the Messenger talked to Reagan, and then both he and Mondale told the American people to not be idiots? Wow! I’m not sure what’s going to happen around the country, in the elections today.”

“I guess that’s why John said he was glad I couldn’t run against him.”

“Oh, hell, here locally, you’d get every vote if you did. And probably from half the state, too. In a way, you’re lucky. There’s an old saying, all politics is local. Well, your news about everything you’ve done, and are doing here, is going to stay local for a little while. We’re hoping until after the start of next year. I’m certain you didn’t pay any attention to the commercials that were running on television and radio. Mondale’s not the only one who decided to pull out of the race at the last second. It’s going to be an interesting night to follow things.”

“I see. Thanks for the talk, Brad. I had no idea,” I said.

“Not a problem, Sir. If you ever need anything ... Chuck, or any of the other shift leaders like I am can help. We’re set up with a quasi-military chain of command now. We’ve changed things on how we operate for you. Like I said, you and your family are more important than nukes ... especially now that we don’t really need nukes. We do need you.”

I wandered back to the house, while Jethro took off to chase a bird.

Jennifer saw me come in. “Are you okay, sweetie? You look like you just ate half a bag of lemons, you’ve got such a sour expression on your face.”

“I don’t suppose it’s possible that we could just dump everything, take a little money, and go live somewhere peacefully, where no one’s going to bother us, is it?”

Marcia chuckled. “Been talking to Brad? He’s got an interesting take on things. What’s going to be funny is that I’m going to pull some of the stuff out of my basement for them, to have at our house in California.”

“This is ... you know, I almost have the urge to simply go scream a bit, or something totally out of character for me. Or just go off on a cursing rampage for a bit. What the hell have I done?”

“Come here,” Jennifer said. I walked over to her, let her take me in her arms. “Just rest your head on my shoulder, and tell me all about it.” She pulled me down into a chair, letting me sit on her lap.

I spent the next half hour venting about what I’d learned, and how the consequences of my actions were going to affect us and our lives. Margie and Marcia gathered on either side of us, sitting on the floor, resting their heads on my legs.

Jennifer leaned forward when I was done, giving me a kiss on the top of my head. “We forget at times, don’t we, my sisters, my fellow wives, my fellow mothers? Our man really does have the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s a good man. He’s virile, he’s a good provider, he loves all of us. But he’s young and needs our help.”

“And we shall give it to him,” she declared.

The other two nodded. “Yes, we will,” Margie said. “It’s time to slow down. And you have the perfect excuse. You need to train Beth. In her powers, and in public, as your new apprentice.”

Marcia laughed. “That’s perfect! The two of you can make a public appearance at someplace, in your outfits. You can pull out some money and buy her an ice cream cone and then both of you fly up in the air a couple of miles, pull the bottom of your mask up, and eat it. Then come back down and compliment them.”

Jennifer snorted. “When someone asks ... and they will ... you can say that since you’re doing such a good job, your home office sent you a Messenger in training. That’ll give her the excuse that she doesn’t know all of the languages on the planet, and at the same time, you can explain that you have to show her how to do things.”

“I can do that. But what do I do when Dora and Eve want the powers, too?”

“Same thing you’ll do for us, once we have our babies next summer. Give them the stones to hold, so that they can gain them. That should give their bodies time to adapt, so they’ll be ready to help when Halley’s Comet gets here in early 1986, and then they can be pregnant when we get our degrees in the winter of 1986.”