Chapter 30

I was a bit surprised at how dusty I was when I knocked on the door.

Of course, instead of simply flying at my absolute fastest speed, I’d actually taken an hour, turning some very large chunks of rock and ice into much smaller chunks of rock and ice. There were still a tremendous number of them even after those few I’d destroyed, so my wives and the Planetary Defense Units were going to be busy. Admittedly, it was sort of cool to fly through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

After waiting a couple of minutes, I knocked on the airlock door a bit harder. About ten seconds later, a green light came on to one side. It took about thirty seconds before it changed to red, and then the airlock silently opened. I slipped inside, then pushed the rather obvious button on the panel beside the inner door. That caused the outside door to slide shut, with air entering the chamber. That allowed me to hear normally again. The light by the inner airlock door changed from green to red, and then opened.

“Hi! I’m with Welcome Wagon, here to welcome you to the neighborhood! Tell me, are you married, have school age children, or any pets, so I can recommend services and tell you all about the area?” I asked.

A speaker just outside the airlock said, “Well, this is a bit of a surprise.”

“You did mention that we needed to have a bit of a face to face discussion, as it were. Since I noticed you’d cleared the ice that was around your ship, and you’re still almost a full day from Earth orbit at cometary speeds, I figured I’d come on up and ... well, I’m not planning on taking my shoes off, but I’d sit a spell, as some people would say. I do have to apologize. Is there an air shower, or perhaps you want to close an interior bulkhead and open the outer door for a few seconds? I don’t want to be an inconsiderate guest and bring extra dust and bits of ice in on my first visit.”

“No, that is fine. Please, enter.”

“Thank you.” I floated through the airlock, twisting so that my feet were towards the floor of the corridor ahead of me. As soon I passed through the door, the artificial gravity kicked in and brought me down, while the inner airlock door closed behind me.

“Go left at the junction ahead of you, and follow it. There will be an open doorway on your right. I will be waiting for you there,” Shiva said.

I looked through the walls, floor, and ceiling around me as I walked. I also looked through the four closed doorways at the rooms that I passed. They appeared to have beds and dressers in them, but were otherwise empty. It only took me a couple of minutes. The open doorway went into a room quite a bit larger, with a table and six chairs surrounding it. There was a large video screen on one wall, with the face of Shiva showing on it.

“Please, have a seat,” Shiva said from the monitor.

I pulled one of the chairs out, then sat down.

“Sorry I didn’t call ahead so Zarathen could be awake or otherwise available,” I said with a grin.

“He will join you shortly. May I offer you some refreshments?” Shiva asked.

“Yes, you may,” I replied, and leaned back.

His image blinked, then grinned. “Oh, you have a logical mind. Interesting. Would you like something to drink, or to snack upon?”

“Both would be fine. I brought a couple of things myself, for Zarathen to try as well,” I said, opening the pouch on my pants and pulling out a couple double sealed plastic bags. “I would, of course, offer some directly to you, but I’m afraid if you’re completely electronic, you wouldn’t have the receptors necessary to enjoy them.”

“Yes, that does tend to preclude my ability to participate in eating or drinking. Fortunately, I have all of the memories of what things tasted like, and can simulate them for my mental pleasure as needed.”

A small table on four wheels came into the room, carrying a couple of containers with liquids in them, as well as a plate with a variety of items on it.

“Do not worry, none of them are poisonous to you,” Shiva said.

“I wasn’t worried about poison. I was actually curious as to where you came up with them, since to the best of my knowledge, it’s been several thousand years since you had a meat body to gather supplies,” I answered. “So they can’t be freshly gathered.”

The figure on the screen nodded and replied, “Yes, that is correct. However, I have a large supply of assorted raw component materials. It is merely a case of supplying the necessary energy to combine the appropriate raw materials into the finished product.”

“Sort of like the food replicators on ‘Star Trek,’ then,” I said, pouring myself a glass of something tan and taking a sip. “Not bad. This tastes quite a bit like some tea I’ve had that came from a region of India. Just a bit off, and of course, I’m an uncouth American and prefer sweet tea, so I admit I’m a little biased.”

“You are rather obviously aware that I am revered as a god by the natives of India. That was a drink deemed suitable for my palate. I am curious to see your reaction to some of the food.”

I picked up something that looked deep fried, with a small bowl of sauce next to it. I dipped it in the sauce, then took a bite.

“Ah, good, and with a very slightly spicy sauce. This reminds me of a lamb Samosa that I was served during a visit I made to India last year. Oh, and it ‘was revered,’ not am. Sorry, but neither Shiva nor Lady Sati are much revered as gods any longer.”

I picked up another snack, one that looked like a meat curry stuffed into a bite-sized bread bowl, and ate it.

“Ah, now this has some kick to it. Goat meat, seasoned with ghost peppers and other vegetables. I actually had something similar to it in what was eastern Afghanistan just last month.” I chuckled, then. “It rather amazed the locals that someone from Kansas could handle the spicy food they grew up on. They thought all Americans were soft. One of my girlfriend’s grandmother, actually, made some salsa and cheese poppers with ghost peppers in them. They were delicious. You might know those Indian peppers by their older name, the Bhut Jolokia.”

“I do know that name. Are you aware of the actual origin of those peppers?” he asked.

I shrugged and said, “I presume something that was brought to Earth from Star Home, either by one of the original colonists, or one of the follow-up missions. They are too spread out to have been something you brought when you came here.”

The face on the screen frowned. “You are quite well informed regarding the ancient history of both Star Home and Earth, as well as more relatively recent events of both. However, you mentioned a name I am not familiar with. Who is Lady Sati?”

I chuckled and replied, “Funny. She’s supposed to have been your first wife. Of course, considering what I know from my personal trips to India, she actually wasn’t. But she is - or was, anyway – similar to you, with some of the same powers, and that’s why the primitives that were left after your combat with the three sisters worshiped her like they had you. And yes, that was Irhaal. But, like I said, she’s dead.”

Zarathen walked into the room then. As soon as he did, I used my vision to look into him and mentally said ‘Fuck,’ even as I stood up with my right hand out. He had a fully grown organ inside him.

He looked down at my outstretched hand, then back up at me.

“I suppose in the interests of cooperation, I should be friendly,” he said, reluctantly taking my hand. He tried to put a bit of pressure into it, but failed to even move me. Nodding at that, he let go and sat down at the chair closest to the door.

He looked just like his electronic counterpart. Black hair piled high on his head and flowing down over his shoulders, full eyebrows, three white lines on his forehead that reminded me of Helen’s paint, and something that explained a lot: one of the smaller planetary defense units mounted in his forehead.

I figured that I’d take the bull by the horns, and said, “Well, that helps explain some of the legends. Having a Planetary Defense Unit mounted in your forehead is a neat trick.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will be quite useful to me. How do you know so much about what happened if Irhaal is as dead as my predecessor and the sisters?”

“Like I said the other day: souls can stick around after death on Earth, just like they did on Star Home. Courtesy of – and no offense is intended by me, this is just the name I found out they’re called by people from India – the shivalingam, I’ve spoken with quite a number of souls from people who are deceased. Out of respect for the culture that I learned this from, I call the sisters Madalain, Dala, and Lara, instead of their actual names that are one letter off. Same thing applies to Irhaal, but she wasn’t part of that culture, so she just uses her actual old name. By the way, these little puffs are quite good.”

Zarathen looked at Shiva on the screen, then back at me. “You’re telling me – telling us – that you’ve spoken to all four of them?”

I shrugged and said, “Sure. It’s not like I’m the only one who’s done that, after all. And it’s not like they’re the only souls around to chat with, either. It was big news when the Messenger from Above gave the Pope ... the leader of the Catholic religion, that’s been around for, depending upon who you listen to, more than sixteen hundred years ... a stone with a soul in it of someone that was killed when your fight with the sisters scoured Australia. He’s shared that stone and allowed tens of thousands of people to talk to the soul within. After that, he visited the Cenotaph in London. There’re thousands of souls in there of soldiers that died fighting for King or Queen and Country. I haven’t been there personally, but from my understanding, there’s always a line of people waiting to talk to the souls within. I have been to Pearl Harbor and spoken to the souls living on in the Arizona and in the Punchbowl, and then the souls of the dead at Arlington.”

Shiva slowly said, “It sounds to me like you have done quite a bit of traveling around Earth for someone of your age. Is that due to the powers you yourself possess?”

I shook my head, then said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Here, Zarathen. I brought these up for you to try. You’ll want to have something to drink between them, to cleanse your palate. Those long strips are West Virginia hickory smoked bacon. Those have been fully cooked, they just might need slightly warmed up. This is dark chocolate, and is a sweet confection. It’s fine to eat as it is.”

I looked back at Shiva and said, “As for my powers? Not in the least. Why would I fly somewhere by myself when I can simply get in a plane and fly there in a few hours with however many members of my family I want? It gives me plenty of time to eat, sleep, and make love. A popular bus line has the slogan, ‘Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us.’ To paraphrase, I ‘go Salthawk and leave the flying to them.’”

While I’d been talking, Zarathen took out a slice of bacon.

“This looks familiar. The meat is from a pig?”

I nodded, and he put it into his mouth. He chewed it up and swallowed, then poured a drink into a cup, before putting the chocolate into his mouth. He nodded in approval at it.

“This is something considerably more refined than anything in my memory. I’ve had something similar, made from the bean of the cocoa plant, but it was not as good. The meat is familiar to me, but not in such precise strips.”

“Welcome to modernization. We’ve gone through a technological revolution over the last few hundred years. That’s why I mentioned computers before, and of course, the rocket with nuclear warheads that blew the crap out of the comet your ship was hiding in.” At the look the two of them exchanged, I said, “Don’t worry. That was the only rocket sent your way. It was just convenient that, due to your position in orbit, it didn’t have to fly through the tail of the comet to actually impact. Zarathen, I bet it made cleaning the rest of the ice from around Shiva considerably easier, right?”

“Yes, it did. Thank you for that. Now, since it’s rather obvious you are capable of flying through space yourself, I’m going to assume you have no desire to actually receive any of the other benefits that joining with us could bring to you,” Zarathen said.

I shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure what, if anything, those benefits could be. I don’t suppose that you’ve been monitoring the radio and television transmissions from Earth over the last few weeks, have you?”

“I have, up until the position of the remnants of the comet I was placed within, caused interference in the frequency bands that Earth uses for mass communications,” Shiva answered. “We are quite well aware of the cancellation of many major events, as well as plans to minimize damage from the remnants of the comet as they arrive at Earth over the next several hours. I stated before that it did not matter to me how much damage would happen, as it was irrelevant to me.”

“Oh, I got that, Shiva. Thing is, it’s not irrelevant to me. Don’t get me wrong. I still expect about fifty thousand people to die, with maybe five times that number injured, and property damage to be rather immense and on a global scale. It’s what happens after the damage from the comet debris that I care about.”

“I can understand that,” Shiva said. “However, there is just one minor problem so far as you are concerned regarding that.”

I sighed and said, “Don’t tell me you’re going to threaten to kill me. That won’t work in the least.”

That caused Shiva to open his eyes wide, then after a second narrowing them. “I wasn’t planning on threatening to do anything. I intend to kill you, since it is rather apparent to me that you have the potential to be a threat to me, and to us.”

“That’s actually an error on your part. I don’t have the potential to be a threat. I am a threat to you. It’s nothing personal, mind you. That’s the reason I asked if you’d seen the radio or TV, since there was a world-wide broadcast that went out yesterday evening. It had ... quite a bit of information for everyone around the world on what was coming in, what they could expect, and even why they were going to need to spend quite a bit of time in shelters. You heard me mention there’s a world government, but you forgot to ask me if I was involved with that.”

I crossed my arms and looked at them expectantly.

After a couple of seconds, Zarathen asked, “Are you involved with that?”

I uncrossed my arms and smiled broadly. “I’m so glad you asked. Why, yes, yes I am. My official title with the Federation of Terran Nations is that of Spatial Defense Minister. What that means is that I’m the third highest ranking member of the planetary government, actually. This emblem on my chest is actually something we came up with as the symbol for those men and women who will be part of Earth’s planetary defense forces and space soldiers. Of course, if you’d seen some television from a couple months ago, you’d understand the significance of having my name and football jersey number on the back. Just for your edification, I’m the best college football player in the game. Oh, and I’m also the sovereign monarch of a couple of nations, and one of the wealthiest men on Earth. Not bad for someone who won’t even be eighteen until August, right?”

Zarathen frowned, while Shiva shook his head before he said, “That would indicate to me that you are not telling me about yourself then.”

“Just one other title, of course. One that I didn’t choose. Guardian of the Earth.”

I exploded into action then, ripping the table out of the floor to help deflect the beams that were in the ceiling. My movement even as the concealing plates started to open took Shiva by surprise, slowing the actual firing of the beams by just a millisecond. Of course, at the speed I was moving, a millisecond advantage was all I needed.

The covers over the beams opened, with two Planetary Defense Units firing at me. While the impact of the beams imparted kinetic energy to the table, I was already braced against the floor, so it didn’t knock me over. I used the table to reflect them towards Zarathen. He had been ready for them to fire at me, and had already started moving towards me, so both of them caught him in the chest. That energy knocked him back against the wall of the room.

With him temporarily out of the way, I jumped up and punched through the ceiling. I grabbed one of the PDUs and pulled it out, making a quick physical adjustment to it so it couldn’t fire again, then did the same with the other.

By this time, Zarathen had recovered and launched himself at me. Rather than stopping him, I simply grabbed his wrist, stepped slightly to one side, then spun. That imparted quite a bit more momentum to him, and with my strength behind it, propelled him through the other wall of the room.

“That’s not possible!” Shiva protested.

“Quod erat demonstrandum, or QED. Latin, it literally means, which was to be demonstrated. In this case, it means that I just showed you it is possible,” I said.

I felt something change in the room, then Zarathen came flying back through the hole, both fists stretched out in front of him. This time he was moving so fast, I couldn’t stop him. He hit me in the chest, slamming my back into, and then through, the wall. He stopped, but I continued, twisting around so I was in the position I’d been in when destroying the tanks of Iraq. That allowed me to punch the rest of the way through the walls of the ship and into space.

That sucked. It hurt, just a little, but nothing serious. It also told me that Shiva had set some of the shivalingam he controlled up just like the ones the Thug had. But they weren’t totally draining to me like the ones the sisters and Irhaal had worn, perhaps because I didn’t have them on a necklace.

However, since I now was in space, I immediately found out what had happened to the rest of the PDUs that were unaccounted for. Three of them fired, with two of them hitting me in the back. I decided to see what would happen, so I just went limp.

Two more beams fired, hitting me and causing me to spin. I was rather pleased that they did no damage at all to my uniform, not like I was expecting it. Since I was drifting at a rapid pace on a vector away from his ship, I also knew I’d be out of his firing range from our combined velocities fairly rapidly, unless something changed on his part.

‘Are you having fun so far?’ Margie asked.

‘Of course. How are things going on your end?’ I sensed her frown. ‘It’s been a long day, and going to be longer, that’s for damned sure. I know you didn’t take your watch. It’s just after eight at night here. The leading edges started coming down in the mid-Pacific about half an hour ago. Everything east of India is open to getting hit, then the Moon is going to start getting pummeled from four in the morning until about noon. It won’t get all of it, but that’s going to make it easier saving a huge chunk of Asia, Africa, and Europe. But NASA calculates that everything between Madrid, Spain, and probably Denver, Colorado – so all of South and Central America, and half of North America – will catch the brunt of it. There is good news you didn’t know about, though.’ ‘Considering I just busted out of Shiva’s ship and the asshole has some shivalingam set up for power draining, and Zarathen has one of our organs, I could use some of that.’ ‘I saw that. Hugo’s helping, albeit with some serious on-the-job training.’ ‘How?’ ‘Fried,’ she thought to me with a laugh. ‘Sorry, that was too easy. He’s got one of the masks from Area 51, with replaceable air cartridges holding liquid air, since he can’t go without breathing for hours like you and my sister-wives can. With South Africa and his wives and children effectively safe, he demanded that he not be held back.’ ‘Works for me. Well, I’m outside of effective firing range, so I think it’s time to go fuck with Shiva and Zarathen some more.’ I felt her kiss on my cheek, then turned myself around so I could see his ship. It wasn’t a sphere like Pahto had piloted, it was more like a flattened cylinder, sort of like if you’d cut the ends off a soup can and pushed it in a little, then put something over the openings. Like my small ship, it had some obvious main engines to the rear. Instead of the smaller maneuvering thrusters mine had, it had devices around the front and sides that appeared identical, and weren’t where the PDU shots had originated.

I decided it was time to fuck with his ship, so I flew around in front of it. I looked through the hull and made sure where I could grab, then flew in so I was inside some of the exposed machinery, took hold, and began pushing against it. Not violently, just enough to start slowing him down a little over time.

He was right at two point four million miles and twenty hours at his current speed, from Earth. I needed to knock seven miles per second off his speed, so it’d take him twenty-six hours to reach Earth. Or, more precisely, exactly where he’d run smack into the moon as it swung around the planet.

While it was a rudimentary guess from punching out of his ship, I didn’t think he could survive an eleven hundred megaton kinetic hit if I failed otherwise.

After about three hours of carefully pushing, with Helen channeling enough energy to me to stay ‘topped off’ – which almost wasn’t needed, considering how much closer to the Sun I was – I did some quick calculations. Based on things now, and without additional acceleration, his ship physically couldn’t hit Earth. It’d be close, but it’d end up missing by about two hundred thousand miles. And it would also be in perfect position to effectively crash head on into the Moon as it orbited.

‘Tell Helen thank you,’ I sent to Margie.

‘I will. I’ve been watching. You’re confident his ship can’t hit Earth?’ ‘As it is, yeah. If you’ve been watching, then you’ve seen the same thing I’ve seen with my vision. This was a fucking artifact, not something he built. I’ve figured out where the engines are, and more importantly, the fuel supply. I’m going to go put his engines out of commission.’ I was rather amazed that Shiva hadn’t noticed me while slowing his ship down, but I wasn’t going to argue with it. I suspect it was because I hadn’t brought any of my shivalingam with me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been taken by surprise when I knocked on his airlock door.

Another thing I’d been doing while slowing the ship down was using my vision. The extra power Helen had been sending me allowed me to literally see through his entire ship. Just because I didn’t know how it worked ... I stopped what I was doing and opened my pouch.

‘Hey, Grandfather. Sorry you’ve been stuck on the outside, but that was something SJ and Harry didn’t think about, making a pouch where you could ride inside my shirt.’ ‘While it was inconsiderate of them, I’ll let it pass for now. What’s going on?’ I quickly updated him on where I was, what’d happened, and then asked, ‘Did you help with the design of the engine on my ship? I’d really hate to end up destroying the wrong thing on his ship, and create a black hole only a few hours from home.’ He chuckled and said, ‘Yes, that certainly would qualify as a bad thing, wouldn’t it? No, I did the design for Mycroft, and then made it so that he knew how to fly your ship. The design primarily came from your Father and other members of the family. But why worry about destroying the wrong thing? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of your goals actually capturing as much of his technology as you could?’ ‘Yeah. What are you thinking?’ ‘Well, I’ve talked with your wives, of course. One of the things Eve mentioned was when she flew closer to Sol, it gave her extra power. So much so she had to expend it with a beam into empty space. It would seem to me there’s some rather full space right here that you could maybe expend that beam on. From what I’ve seen, it slices, it dices, it even makes julienne fries, but you’ve got to hit that sucker just right.’ I mentally sighed, and said, ‘I knew taking you with me to Johnny Carson’s show last week was a bad idea, especially with Gallagher as the follow-up act to my interview. How the hell was I supposed to know he’d want me to swing the Sledge-O-Matic?’ ‘Yeah, but it’s not like you’re wanting to do precision work here, like when you fixed Mycroft, is it?’ ‘No, it’s not. Dammit,’ I replied.

‘You always did hate losing arguments to me. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.’ I kicked off from the ship and floated out until I was about half a mile from it, then took up a station keeping position. Since Zarathen had cleared the ice from it, that meant there wasn’t anything to sublime. We were actually now behind the coma being generated by what remained of the core of Halley’s Comet as it approached Earth, so completely in sunlight. I sat out there for a half hour, building up my own reserves of energy so I wouldn’t be pulling from Helen for this.

I’d read some of Toby’s comics, so I knew I had a bit more control than Cyclops. Instead of just converting the beams I generated into kinetic energy like the PDUs or the comic book character did, I already knew I could do as Grandfather said. As I opened fire and began cutting through the ship, I had the random thought that at least Doc Brown wasn’t around exclaiming to Marty about how much energy I was channeling.

It only took me a little over a second to make a nice slice all the way through the ship. The gush of air out was fairly even, so there was no tumbling by either section, and the only thing the air gushing out caused was a slight separation that was only going to get larger over time. As soon as I was done, I turned and looked back at the compartment where I’d last spotted Zarathen. He was still looking around, trying to figure out what had happened.

While there were emergency bulkheads that had instantly slammed shut to prevent air loss, they weren’t made from material from Star Home any more than the rest of the ship. Apparently the gravity generators under the decks had their own emergency power, as they were still operable. I simply walked up to the first door and pushed it open, allowing it to snap closed behind me. Then I quickly ran through the corridors of the ship to where Zarathen was frantically working at an emergency panel.

I ripped the door from its mount, tossing it behind me.

“I’m sorry, did you think you’d actually taken care of me that easily?” I asked.

“You are still alive? That is not possible!” came from a screen on the wall. “Stop!”

Zarathen had started to spin around in his chair, and froze in position. “What is it, my electronic counterpart? What do you detect?” he asked.

“He is not from Earth!”

I snorted and said, “Of course I am, you ignorant pile of components. Star Home and Corvala are more than twenty-seven light years from here. Even using the FTL engine that used to be attached to this ship, it’d take weeks to travel that far.”

“That is not what I meant, you insolent whelp! You were not born on Earth!”

I rolled my eyes, then said, “For someone who now lives in a computer, you’re sure not precise in your communication skills. You really should’ve spent more time working on those over the thousands of years you’ve been stuck in this tin can.”

Zarathen narrowed his eyes and said, “You’re obfuscating. Answer the question!”

“Wow! Big words, from someone who didn’t even exist a few months ago, until you were copied into a meat brain that took centuries to grow because the previous owner was an idiot and a moron. You’re not even aware there wasn’t a question.”

“Fine! Where were you born?” Shiva asked.

“In a medical facility, of course,” I said. “My parents weren’t primitives like some of the people in part of my Kingdom, where the women simply have their babies at home.”

“You ... you arrogant bastard! What city were you born in?”

I smiled and replied, “Now, now, Shiva. My parents were legally married, so that means I’m not a bastard. And I’ve told people many times in interviews and training, there is a difference between arrogance and confidence. Arrogance means you think you can do something. Confidence means you know you can do something. Oh, and my official birth certificate says I was born at the Community Medical Center of Fresno, California.”

“No! That’s not what I meant! People from Earth cannot do what you have done!”

“What? Fly in space? I hate to break it to you, but the first man from Earth to fly into space did it a full seven years before I was born. I suppose we ought to actually thank you, both of you, really. When you seeded the Earth’s atmosphere with whatever the hell it was you used during your last visit when it went through the tail of Halley’s Comet caused one hell of a technological revolution. Of course, it also helped start a few major wars, but that’s okay. I know from talking to the souls you don’t seem to have an issue with that. Of course, the minor detail that the nukes didn’t fly like you’d expected, which would’ve made it a lot easier for you to come in, clean up the survivors, and set yourself up as planetary governor when the other ships from your people showed up really fucked up your plans, didn’t it?”

From the looks on both their faces, my educated guess had been right on the money.