Chapter 30

Saturday morning wasn’t too hectic, all things considered. None of us had any answers to what had happened with William last night, so that got filed under ‘investigate later.’ Cain and Abel, with a couple of helpers, made it to the house in the middle of the night with everything, and they’d just parked the trucks rather than try to unload anything. The vast majority of the cargo was clothes, although there was a fair amount of jewelry as well, with a few pieces of furniture sprinkled in. Diana’s little MG was also delivered.

Not too surprising, I suppose, Jerome and Andrew showed up early. They were simply escorted in, while everyone was sitting around the breakfast table, and took seats on one side.

Once they were seated, I said, “Apropos of nothing in particular, but is this table getting larger?”

“It’s a subtle thing, so normally nothing you’d probably notice,” our new weekend cook, Claire, said. “The room here is obviously long enough for a table to seat fifty. Since one of those is something for a permanent home, we use regular tables that fold up if not needed and put them end to end. We pretty much plan on a minimum of twenty-four, if it’s just the immediate family, all the time. Then take it from there. Knowing there were going to be more people this morning, I planned on thirty-six.”

From his seat, Mike said, “It’s another one of those little things we do behind the scenes so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Greatly appreciated,” I said. “Jerome, Andrew, please, dig in. You don’t have free run of the house yet, but you’re at least now allowed on the property without fear of being shot and killed just for pulling up.”

Jerome nodding, saying, “Thank you for that, I think. The Palace faxed me a list of items that they show were packed up for Lady Diana and the boys. More or less, they’ve asked me to confirm that what’s on the list is what you’ve actually received. I ... um...” He paused, looking embarrassed.

Andrew chuckled. “I work for MI-6, so I can say it. His Royal Highness threw an extreme shit fit. We’re presuming that he didn’t simply destroy some of the things in anger, but they want us to make sure, so that they can make it right by Her Royal Highness if he did. That’s the official word. Back-channel, Her Majesty is ... very disappointed in the behavior of her eldest. She presumed that once the children were born, he’d finally grow up. I didn’t say that, and it wasn’t told to me exactly that way by Her Majesty.”

Jerome turned his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You’re a bit higher up the chain than I figured, then.”

“Plausible deniability, Sir Jerome.”

Brent said, “Um, basically we have three twenty-four foot straight trucks sitting out there. I’ve not been through this whole house, but I’m not sure there’s enough room for even just the clothes in here. Same for the furniture, actually. There’s four standalone jewelry chests in one of the truck, and they sounded full when we loaded them. There were also a couple of special cases, too.”

Sarah glanced at her sister. “You still had the Spencer tiara, didn’t you?”

“Of course. I have four different ones, for special occasions, plus whatever Her Majesty felt like loaning me. The only problem with borrowing hers is the Spencer head is larger than the Windsor head, and hers press in too tightly. Gives you an awful headache.”

Jennifer casually asked, “You had baby clothes, too, didn’t you?”

“Of course, Dear. Oh, excellent!” Diana smiled brightly.

Margie grumpily complained, “Go figure. Five foot six and with these out front, I won’t be able to fit in anything.”

Marcia smiled. “I’m sure we can find a seamstress or two if needed, Margie. I think it’d be incredible for all of us to be wearing something rather royal to the Oscars, don’t you?”

Jennifer said, “If there’s clothing to sort through, and to see how something might fit, why are we still sitting here?”

“Because it’d be rude to Claire to not finish the meal she fixed for us,” I sternly said.

Seventeen women turned as one to where I was sitting, simultaneously saying, “Yes, Master.”

Once breakfast was done, I did what any good husband would do when confronted with a daunting task such as what faced the girls. I took the three younger girls and went off to the engineering department, so I wouldn’t drown in the estrogen. Leonard pulled me aside before we left.

“I hate you right now. I’m her attorney, so I have to stay.” He had a grin on his face showing he wasn’t too serious. I found out for sure with his next words. “With Marcia being pregnant, and us not having any kids, Beverly will be coming up to visit you frequently. I’ll make sure she does.”

I grimaced, and in a small voice, said, “I’m sorry, Leonard. Are you sure you can’t tag along with Mike and us? Just leave it for Brent and James?”

“Marcia’s taught me so much about her favorite TV show and movies. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ is a good Klingon proverb. Have fun, Cal.”

I’d actually been wanting to do something like this with Carrie for a while, and just hadn’t had any free time. It was a bonus having all three girls at the same time to help. Their older counterparts knew about the existence of Star Home technology that I didn’t even know about, either because it’d been lost between their time and mine, or because of how I’d grown up isolated. We spent the entire rest of the morning and most of the afternoon just brainstorming about what was possible, even if right now it wasn’t doable.

We’d sent Dave off for pizza and drinks for lunch so we could work through it. So, when we got home in the evening, it was a tired crowd in the house. That crowd had grown in size by three more people, with the arrival of Earl, Elroy, and Gloria. They were on their way back to Kansas and had stopped in to pick up Holly. We made arrangements for them to host our kids while they were on Spring Break, since Stanford would already be back in session. Elroy cornered me after an hour.

“I hear you managed to scare the crap out of the Vice-President, while at the same time doing your bit for world peace.”

“It was a small, relatively speaking, nuke, and I’m pretty sure I could’ve contained it. A special courier from the Church brought four shivalingam to us, so we have fifty-eight of them now, with four of them on rings. When I had them all outside of our Faraday cage here, I could tell where the others are in the world. Do you think anyone would really miss South Africa if it took a kinetic energy strike or ten?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s where Sokalski is, then?”

“Yeah. He’s going to be more dangerous than the Thug or Cris was. He’s got activated devices, and he knows how to use them. It’s almost like one of those comedy routines. I know he has them, he knows I know he has them, and I know that he knows that I know he has them.”

“I don’t suppose that just giving him a phone call is something you could do?”

“I wish it was, Grandpa. He’s got enough to access Shiva, same as I do. Right now, it’s almost like a big game of ‘Risk.’ I own North America, Australia, and most of Asia. With Cris on board, I’ll also own South America. Europe is split between us, and other than Egypt, he owns all of Africa. I’m pretty much just going to maintain the status quo for the rest of the summer, as much as I can, and let the nations of the world figure out the next step.”

“You ought to arrange a meeting with the Messenger. One in private, if you know what I mean. You’ve got powers that he doesn’t have, or hasn’t shown. Or at least ... not a press conference, but call the leaders and tell them he’s met with you.”

“Cardinal Gantin told me that he thought for a while that I was the Messenger. But it was obvious that the girls couldn’t be the Angels, just from a physical perspective. This is going to sound selfish, but my first three girlfriends are my secret weapon. No one knows about them.”

Elroy said, “Um, lots of us know about them.”

“Yeah, but you’re family. If ... or when ... it comes out, there’ll probably be a lot of pissed off people, but I think it’ll have been worth it.”

“I hope so, Son, I hope so.” He chuckled, then. “Princess Diana, huh?”

“Didn’t mean to, but you’ve heard that before.” We talked for another couple of hours before everyone headed off to bed.

Other than a family cookout on Sunday, the four of us that were in college spent the day doing final reviews and getting ready for our exams. We had one last study session in the afternoon with our law classes, just to go over a few things as a group. Beth and I made it home in time to give everyone hugs and kisses. We’d already been informed the conferring of degrees in April was going to be very low key, so the Kansas group wasn’t coming out then. They were definitely coming out for Commencement in June, especially since that Sunday was also Margie’s due date.

Because I had the lightest class schedule, I only had one test each day through Wednesday. Once the last one was done Wednesday morning, I spent the rest of the day in the chemistry lab. I’d read the notes that Dora had brought home describing what they were doing; I simply wanted to put my hands in for a bit. Also, regardless of the break between quarters, we had two processes running that we simply couldn’t shut off. At the least, they needed to be checked a couple of times per day, to make sure that things were growing properly.

Cody and Jonathon weren’t planning on going anywhere far, as they were both from California. They made arrangements between them to have someone available every day. In addition, Mike made sure that the facility would have our own guards on it while school was out, just in case one of the medical companies that had realized how they’d, as he phrased it, ‘shit in their own mess kit’ by being assholes during my previous presentation to them, didn’t try to break in and steal something.

I’d been quiet as the Messenger. Thursday, I went out on a patrol by myself. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, and I took forty of the shivalingam with me just in case I needed them.

As Cal, I’d told Elroy that Sokalski was in South Africa, and that I couldn’t visit him. I figured he’d be pissed that I went as the Messenger. I flew there, to see if I could track down exactly where Sokalski was hiding. Something was blocking me from narrowing his location down to any closer than five hundred mile radius circle. I figured that something was a shivalingam or ten. I thought that possibly flying a standard search pattern across the country would help me triangulate his location within that quarter million square miles.

I ran into problems with that when I first flew over Capetown. There were marchers in the streets, protesting something. I flew a little closer, and saw they had signs protesting the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre. This was definitely not going to be the day I looked for Sokalski, so I just flew on east, over the southern coast. I knew that I shouldn’t, but like a train wreck, I kept watching as I flew eastward. When I approached Port Elizabeth, I realized something bad was going to happen, and I paused.

About two hundred black people were marching along a road that came from a cemetery. There was fresh turned dirt behind, indicating they’d just had a funeral. They looked peaceful, but there were two police vehicles driving through the crowd. I dropped lower and heard them through the loudspeakers ordering the crowd to disperse. I was puzzled, because there was a road with buildings around them and no place for the crowd to go. One police car sped up, bumping into and knocking an older black man over. I was surprised at the restraint of the crowd, but they did nothing. It came to a stop on a small hill overlooking the road, all four doors opening and men getting out with shotguns and rifles. The other police car quickly joined it, four more police officers getting out as well.

One of them got on the loudspeaker. “Last chance, you fokken Kaffirs! Get off the road and go home or you’ll think Sharpeville was a picnic!”

Fuck.

I dove for the ground, using my laser vision to cut a swath in the dirt between the police and the civilians, then landed in the middle, between the two groups.

“Hi, boys. I just happened to be in the vicinity. What’s going on here?”

“Who the bloody fuck are you?” one of the policeman asked. I had to translate in my mind what he was saying, as he was speaking the bastardized German Dutch of Afrikaans.

“You’ve probably seen me on TV. Messenger from Above. End the fighting, destroy the bad drugs, live in peace. Any of that ring a bell?”

“You’re real? No fucking way!”

“Very much so. So, what seems to be going on here, that you’re ready to continue the fighting and kill a bunch of unarmed people walking along peacefully?”

“They’re not following our orders, to disperse, is what’s going on here!”

I nodded. “I see. It’s rather apparent these people were on their way back from the cemetery. Even though it’s a religion, what’s your issue with allowing them to gather for a few moments to share their grief?”

“What fucking planet are you from? These aren’t people, they’re Kaffirs! And it doesn’t matter, it’s against the law for them to bury someone during the week!”

From behind me, a very brave man said, “Which law? The one that bans burials except on Sundays, or the one that bans them on weekends? How can we know which law to follow, they contradict themselves! All we seek to do is honor the life of a young man killed by the police four days ago.”

“Know your place, Kaffir! It’s not up to you to decide what’s right for you!”

“Why not?” I asked.

“HA! Why not, indeed? We have heard of this man, this Messenger from Above. Sir, we appeal to you for justice! We have been removed from our homes, treated like animals, forced to live under the whip! Slavery is illegal, yet the whites consider us to be their property still. Indeed, treated worse than animals, for they at least care if their beasts of burden receive proper care. For us, you can see they’re ready to slaughter us, yet we have done nothing.”

The police lieutenant shook his head. “Fucking Kaffirs! You disobeyed the law! All right, that’s it! Boys...”

“Hey, wait a second!” I yelled. “Is he right?”

“Boy, you better move or you’re going to get hurt. You sound like you’re white, and I have to write up a whole lot of paperwork if I kill a white man, even one that’s taking the side of the blacks!”

“IS HE RIGHT?”

Another policeman, this one with warrant officer tabs, yelled out to me, “What the fuck does it matter? Now, do like Lieutenant Fouche said, or you’re a deader!”

I sighed loudly, shaking my head. “You know, this is one situation I don’t think the Council has ever really run into before. I know it’s unique for me. It’s not a civil war, it’s not another nation trying to interfere with a lawful government. It’s not even slavery, which we won’t interfere with if it’s been legalized. This is complete ignorance, using two different laws to make something impossible. Well, since I’m the planetary plenipotentiary, my laws override anything local. Those laws are rescinded, by my order. Put your guns down and get back to your station, so I can talk to whatever moron wrote them in the first place.”

“You’re a fucking whack-job, Mister Kaffir Lover. I guess I’m going to have to do a lot of paperwork.”

“Really? You’re going to shoot me? Here, just a minute. Let me get closer. You’re a police officer, not a trained military sniper.” I took half a dozen steps towards the police vehicle. “Now, I’m right here. This way, unless you’re the most pathetic shot in the world, you can’t miss me. Right here, in the chest.”

“Pentz, you’ve got your Vektor ready. Shoot the Kaffir Lover, so we can get on with business.”

“With pleasure, Sir!” He flipped a switch, taking it from safe to semi, then took careful aim. He squeezed the trigger, firing a single round from the 7.62 mm battle rifle. It impacted right in the middle of my breastbone. “What the fuck?”

I plucked the lead bullet from the middle of my chest, where it’d flattened, then dropped it on the ground.

“Warrant Officer Pentz, right? Nice shot. Think you can hit me in the forehead?”

“Bloody hell!” He took up his aim again, firing a second round.

“A little low, and to one side. Unless you were trying to hit me in the right eye on purpose. Just a second, there’s a little dust in there.” I blinked. “Ah, much better. Now then, Lieutenant Fouche, I believe I said something about returning to your station. The people behind me aren’t here to cause trouble. They’ve buried their young man. He’s dead, and nothing they can do will change that. They’re gathered in peace. They’ll disperse in peace. Why don’t you leave them that way?”

I rose into the air a little, my arms spread wide. “Apparently you didn’t listen to your own words a short time ago, asking what planet I’m from. Here’s a hint. It’s not this one. Now, why don’t you all be good little boys and get back into your cars like I said? While you still have cars?”

“Are you threatening us?” Fouche yelled.

“My goodness, you’re a thick-headed one.” I used my speed to fly through the group, taking the shotguns and automatic rifles from all of the policemen. I wasn’t particularly careful about whether or not I broke their trigger fingers when taking the guns out of their hands. Which meant six of them were suddenly yelling in pain with broken index fingers, and I dumped a pile of guns in front of them.

“Fouche, I don’t have to threaten anyone. I’m the ultimate authority for this entire little planet. Apparently you haven’t looked at your moon at night. I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under, but you need to get with it.” I held my hand up, as the crowd started to surge forward.

I turned towards them. “I’m not taking your side in this, either.” I quickly used my heat vision to melt the guns. I used extreme heat, so the ammo didn’t even have time to cook off before vaporizing.

“The only reason I interfered here today is because if I hadn’t done something, dozens of you would now be dead, because of their stupidity. I already rescinded the burial laws, and I won’t be happy if someone tries to reinstate them. Fouche, Pentz, you’re idiots if you don’t think these people are just that, people. They’re human, just like you are. Maybe more so. Descended from the same common ancestors that colonized this planet hundreds of thousands of years ago. All of you. Grow up.”

I quickly shot up into the sky, out of their sight, but close enough I could still watch them. The two groups looked at each other for a couple of minutes, then the police got back into their cars to drive away. The crowd silently parted to allow them through, and then dispersed.

I shook my head again, even if no one could see me. What a fucked up mess. Other than Cardinal Gantin, I wasn’t sure who I could talk to about this situation. I had no desire to talk to him, though, since he’d so recently met Cal in person.

While I’d been dealing with the situation below, I’d completely lost any trace of Sokalski. That was puzzling to me. I did feel something else, an odd pull, from further north, though, and continued up the eastern coast of the continent. I stopped basically due east of Mount Kilimanjaro. Triangulation worked really well that way, it was just south of the peak itself.

I started flying west, using my vision to scout ahead. There was a trail that went up the mountain, starting at some huts more than a dozen miles from the peak. There were other huts closer. Perfect, that’d give me someplace to land, and just walk rather rapidly. The huts themselves were empty right now, so it was easy for me to come on down and start a simple, ground covering run. The first six miles went quite easily, getting me to the second group of empty huts. I figured if I was going to find something, it’d be within the next half mile or so.

I continued jogging up the trail. I was close on my estimate. I was right at five miles from the peak when I felt something probing me. I had also guessed right, in that being able to mentally use the power that forty shivalingam gave me, I could simply bypass the draining security field. I didn’t get cocky, though, just because it seemed like it was going easily. The last thing I wanted to do was accelerate and start flying, only to find myself suddenly drained.

Just short of a mile out, I started to feel the tickling within my brain of something trying to communicate with me. It wasn’t very clear at first, but practically every step closer, it cleared up. Finally, I could understand it.

“Warning. I am an autonomous security system. You have been found to be a threat to this planet. Automatic defenses will activate should you continue to approach this facility. This warning will repeat.” I stopped where I was, and it repeated itself.

“Automatic security system, please activate your personality overlay,” I thought to it.

“Personality overlay activated. Stay where you are, or I will destroy you!”

“While I doubt that you could actually do that, I have no desire to find out. What are your primary mission parameters?”

“Defend the first colonists here to the best of my ability. Protect human life on this planet from invaders. Support them in their growth to colonize and thrive on this planet.”

“How many years ... full orbits of the primary star, if you don’t understand the word ... have you been operational?”

“This unit was placed in operation one hundred thirty four orbits ... years ... after the colonists arrived here. I have been operational for two hundred forty-six thousand, five hundred fourteen point four years.”

“The girls were right. We did build stuff to last back then. Were you ever assigned a name, or did they allow you to choose one?”

“I am known as Peace.”

“Makes sense. This is Mount Uhuru, in the local language. That means peace. Peace, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Kalikulo. I am from Star Home. I am not an invader, as this planet was originally settled from Star Home.”

If it was possible for a thought to sound suspicious, this one did. “Previous encounters with beings claiming to be from Star Home resulted in the deaths of millions on this planet. I was unable to save them.”

“Unfortunately, I know exactly what you’re talking about. My main mission is to protect the planet from his return, as he has apparently adapted his personality into an AI and placed that AI in a comet with an orbital path of approximately seventy-six years. He’s due to return next year.”

“How are you able to utilize the devices he had, if you are not like him?”

I explained the biology about the people that had fled here, and how Shiva was like them. More importantly, I explained how I was not like them, and that the planet itself, or some system operating genetically, had created people here to defend Earth. After another fifteen minutes of discussion, the overlay allowed me to approach.

“Doesn’t look like you’re anywhere on the surface,” I thought.

“Negative. I was placed here so I could utilize the geothermal heat of the volcano as part of my defenses. It erupted one hundred sixty one thousand, eight hundred sixty two point three five years ago, covering me under forty one point three feet of ash. That did not impede my operation, but it did destroy the building I was housed within.”

“Okay. Give me a second here, I want to try something, rather than simply brute force.” I began mentally picturing the device deep below the ground, then envisioning the ash and rock above it loosening their surface tensions, becoming nearly liquid. I made slight movements with my fingers, even though they weren’t needed, just to help me concentrate. After two or three minutes, I was done.

“That ... is not a power I have recorded within my database as anyone from Star Home or from this planet being capable of.”

“Yeah. I’ve been called an overachiever. So, Peace, you ready to go meet Junior, which is our name for another defending personality overlay, and Mycroft, the AI that saved me from the death of Star Home?”

“Star Home has been destroyed?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it on the way.” I picked him up and put him into my pouch with the shivalingam. I took off then, flying the rest of the way around the world on my way home. I explained to him everything that had happened, and what was going on. We took one small bath in the Gulf of Alaska, to grab a fishing boat before it sank too deep. I flew over to the Coast Guard cutter that had rescued the crew, the fishing vessel in my hands.

“I apologize for not getting here before the Ocean Bounty sank, but I see you rescued the crew. Are you taking them to Kodiak?”

The stunned Coast Guardsmen just nodded. “Okay. Tell them that their boat will be waiting for them.” I dropped it off a short time later at a marine dealer in Kodiak, letting them know that the Coast Guard was bringing the crew, so it wasn’t salvage, even though I’d pulled it up from almost a hundred feet down. Leaving it, I flew the rest of the way home.

After dropping Peace off with Mycroft, so they could get acquainted, I found the new kids and spent some time playing with Harry and Wills. Then, after both of them were put down for the evening, I spent some time playing with the women that were over eighteen. The other three still had one more exam, on Friday.

While the girls were taking their last exam Friday, I spent the day in the chemistry lab. We actually managed to create Heat-X, and while it was a variation, it wasn’t the same formula Mycroft had given me long ago for the girl’s uniforms. They set things up so that over the next week, we would end up with close to fifty gallons of it for testing.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Doctor Fallow said.

“Yes, well, I am planning on taking next week off, if that’s okay,” I replied.

“Oh, no, go ahead, you’ve certainly earned it. I just wanted you to be ready, for when you come back. We’ve had some discussions on what to do with you. Your official class roster will increase slightly next quarter. You’ll have three classes each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, from nine until one. Then lunch, and a lab in the afternoon, either here or engineering. Wednesday, you’ll have two, same hours, and same afternoon schedule. Friday, you’ll be free for labs or whatever, and weekends ... well, Ames has said they’d like to borrow you. NASA has two shuttle launches next month.”

I grinned, then said, “I might make the second one, but I’ll be in Georgia for the first launch. That’s the weekend of the Masters.”

“Ah, yes. While I’m sure NASA will be disappointed, I quite understand.” He stopped and looked at our chemical apparatus. “What’s this? It looks like something is going to be running all week, while you’re gone.”

“Yeah. We’re making enough to have something to experiment with when we get back. We’re taking it easy with this first batch, making about fifty gallons. It’s tougher than I thought, but easier than I expected, if that makes sense. We’ll see if we can get something together for their June launch, so they can just drop it out of low earth orbit and then hopefully not watch it burn up on reentry.”

He rubbed his hands together. “I do so love it when my faith in a student proves me right. Even more when I get another free steak dinner.” At my puzzled look, he said, “I said you’d have it by the middle of April. No one else picked sooner than end of May.”

With no classes the following week, we discussed simply going to Florida for the entire week. Jennifer had skipped the Las Vegas Invitational this week, but she was definitely going to Ponte Vedra Beach for TPC Sawgrass next week. In the end, we decided that we’d just fly out as a family on Friday evening, after the kids were done with school.

Instead, we flew down to LA for the weekend, to see some of the sights. The kids and some of the adults would fly home Sunday, while the rest of us would stay until Tuesday. As a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Marcia had a ticket and seat reserved for the awards ceremony Monday evening if she wanted it. She did, because it was also our way of making a statement to the world that night.

I’m too trusting. I should have been suspicious when Marcia had me stop off at a store Saturday afternoon to get measured. She said I’d need some formal wear for Monday night. I’d argued that the suit I’d worn to our high school graduation would work, since it was only three months old. I was told the colors weren’t appropriate for the Academy Awards, and I wanted to look my best, didn’t I?

I’d learned my lesson. “Yes, Dear.”

The rest of the weekend was fun. We visited Marcia’s house Saturday afternoon, so she got to show off the collection downstairs. Then we did some of the shopping and sightseeing that we’d planned for the last trip, but hadn’t done. Sunday, we got to do a studio tour, to see where the magic is made. All three kids were ready to go home Sunday night. Jennifer, Beth, and Dora, along with Jasveer and Mina, went with them.