“Ten years in transit, with the latest drive system, but we spent the better part of it in stasis.”
“I am so envious. How were things on Earth when you left? Was it getting worse or better?”
Jack’s frown answered the captain’s question before he spoke, “Yeah, it was getting crazy. Even the governments of the large countries were failing. They could not keep up with the accelerated climate change, expanding populations, or the failing financial systems. I think one of the worst things the United States did was outlaw robots. It threw us back a hundred years.”
“Why did they…ban the robots?”
“A big part of it was because of the Excalibur. The powers that be decided technology was becoming too intelligent. Too unpredictable. When word got out about the untested machine that went crazy and killed all aboard, leaving the ship dead in the water and headed to dark space, it scared enough people to pass the legislation.”
A confused captain asked, “Where did they get their information? That is not at all what happened.”
“Nobody knows how the story started, but it went viral, and the rumors portrayed as fact. The speculation and the decision were all over the newsfeeds for months.”
“Are we going to be able to keep this quiet?”
“I’ll do what I can, Captain, but I have to report to the civilian board. I’ll think of something to tell them, but if you are going to require our assistance while you get settled, we will have to be very careful how we proceed.”
“Speaking of assistance. I need to be getting back. I have over a thousand people camped out in a field, without any of the conveniences that make life pleasant. Could I trouble you for a ride?”
“Of course. Is there anything I can do to help? We have some portable shelters in storage that should still be in decent shape. Do you have enough food and water? I can probably come up with some ready-made meals and a couple of hundred gallons of drinking water.”
“You are the answer to a prayer, Jack. In so many ways.”
Rivertown is a farming community. They came to Thera to live as their ancestors did, and spent their days working the fields. The evenings were for family. Their community was a throwback in time, living full and contented lives. Technology was used sparingly, the citizens preferring to use the techniques of old, with only a touch of science. They hunted with gunpowder and bullets and processed the meat as they did hundreds of years ago.
The ship that brought them was a private enterprise, and each passenger paid a stiff price for passage on the journey. Most of the three hundred settlers were professionals, and intelligent enough to make substantial amounts of money on a failing world. Some spent their life savings for the chance to be included.
The captain of the Demeter died shortly before landfall, leaving the young Commander Stevenson in charge. His command was short term. Once they established themselves on the planet, an elected civilian council took over, and the commander was relegated to security and the upkeep of the ship.
He did not get the chance to call a meeting. They called one for him, and he met with the council to explain the recent arrival of the strangers in their town.
“They are refugees from the island that had the volcanic eruption. They barely escaped with their lives and little else. We are obligated to help if we can.”
There were five members of the council, and the commander had good relations with all but one. President Theo Sands was a good man and liked well enough to be re-elected to a second five-year term. His given name was Theodore, but for political reasons, he preferred to be called Theo. Unfortunately, Theo is a traditionalist and dislikes technology in almost all forms. There were some items so integrated into society they required tolerance. Data pads, cultivation machines, and a few other devices were allowed only because their usefulness was undeniable.
The job of president was part time, and the gray-haired, fifty-three-year-old could usually be found wearing blue jean coveralls and work boots. Today he wore his black suit. It symbolized the importance he placed in this meeting.
Over the years, President Sands and the commander were involved in numerous disagreements, most of them over the use of technology. It was he that directed the questioning.
“How can we help them? We are in the middle of harvest season and need to prepare for winter. Our food stores are barely enough for us. If we give them our food and spend our time assisting them, we will starve.”
“Now Theo,” said Bob Mercer, a member of the board, “Stop being so melodramatic. The crops are good this year, and we haven’t had a hard winter in six years. I think we can afford to help them some.”
Several other members nodded in agreement.
It was a small town, and information was already leaking. “There are over a thousand people in this group!” countered the president. “If we allow them access to our supplies and stockpiles, they will keep taking until nothing is left.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” the commander volunteered. “What else do I have to do? My men handle security, and the ship requires very little attention. I have the time.”
President Sands was not happy, but it appeared the council wished to help. “Well, all right. But you will be held responsible if we come across hard times because of these uninvited guests.” He paused, and then expressed another concern. “Why are we using ship resources to treat one of them? You know that a lot of that stuff is irreplaceable. We can’t go back to Earth and get more.”
“He was in critical condition Theo. What was I supposed to do?”
“How long will he need to be there?”
“I don’t know yet; they just started the operation.”
“What is wrong with him?”
The commander had an answer ready, “He fell down some stairs and had a heart attack.”
Which, in a way, was true.
The medical bay inside the starship Demeter was truly state-of-the-art, and ten years more advanced than the facilities on the Excalibur. It took a little time for the two doctors and Ana to familiarize themselves with the changes.
It wasn’t until they were able to get him up on a diagnostic table, and performed the scans, did they realize the extent of the damage. In addition to his lack of power, and the deep cuts in several places, his left hand was broken at the wrist.
“How do we fix that?” asked Cody.
Edward pointed to the monitor on the machine and said, “That is the least of our problems. We have to replace the power pack first. See where the power level is? Upper right, in the box at the top.”
“Point zero five? Is that right?”
“I think so. He’s running on a small backup battery that is little more than a large capacitor. It is no wonder his body shut down; he needs what energy he has to keep his brain alive.”
Cody looked over Al’s broken body, alarmed by the damage. He said, “The skin is damaged in many places. It will take time to regrow. But as you say, we must start at the top of the list. Should I begin?”
“There is no better time than now. I’ll prepare the replacement pack. Ana, please assist Doctor Cody.”
With everything they required close at hand and the doors locked, they switched to pro mode; silent, efficient, and fast. Not that long ago, they had performed this same procedure. This time, they had the advantage of experience. The steps and requirements of that prior operation were still fresh in their minds as they labored to reproduce their success. Once they finished replacing Al’s robotic heart, they could begin repairs to his body.
Al Clark is an educated man. He understands why he can’t see, or hear, or feel. Still, the nothingness of being shut down invokes fear, and he struggles to keep his mind quiet. He counts. He takes himself to pleasant memories, and he waits. Soon his friends will wake him, and everything will be all right. He hopes.
After a while, he dreamed of a party. It was a grand affair with decorations and music, and strangers acting like the best of friends. Liz was there, and Chris. All his friends were around him, and they ate, drank, and laughed. The surroundings were new, but somehow homey and comfortable. It was a wonderful dream that ended suddenly, plunging him back into the nothing. The fear returned, but in a reduced form.
Far away, he heard someone calling his name. The hail became louder and louder until he realized he could answer. “All right already. I can hear you.”
His eyes opened and focused on Ana. She was standing over him and smiling. Behind her stood the doctors, also smiling. She said, “Welcome back Al. You had us worried again. You have got to stop doing that.”
His voice was clear and even as he replied, “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to. Stuff just seems to happen to me.”
He found he could move his head, and his eyes roamed the room as he asked, “Where am I?”
“You are aboard a starship, parked outside a town called Rivertown,” said Edward. “You were flown here by shuttle after saving Chris.”
“Is Chris all right?”
Cody answered, “Chris is fine. Much better than you.”
It took a moment for Al to fully understand what Edward said. Pieces stood out, and he asked about them. “You said Rivertown,…and a starship?”
Cody, his surgical gown still spotted with Al’s blood, was excited and smiling from ear to ear. “It is a big stroke of luck, Al. There is another Earth colony on this planet, not twenty-five miles from our village. They have a starship parked outside of their town with a medical center that is better equipped than the Excalibur.”
“So…is everything okay? I mean, am I going to live?”
All three said, “Yes.” Edward quickly added, “Not only that, but we have added a charger to your power supply. You will no longer have to worry about running out of energy. You can plug yourself into any standard one-hundred and ten-volt receptacle.”
“That is great! When did you find time to build a better power pack with all that was going on?”
“I was multi-tasking,” replied Edward, only partially joking. “But that is enough talk for now. We still have work to do.”
Al looked down at his body and saw where they added the charging port on his right side; the small receptacle mounted through the exposed metal where the skin was ripped away during the tsunami. The lower half of his body had multiple cuts and scrapes but didn’t seem to have suffered any serious damage. He saw his left hand hanging by shreds of Tru-Skin. “Are you going to be able to fix that, Ed?”
The smile faded from Edward’s face, but not completely, “I think so. If they allow me to install Tiro into their ships computer, he can program the fabricators to make the parts. They might not be quite the quality of the originals, but they should work.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“It shouldn’t be, but these people are a little anti-tech, and besides, they may not want us messing around with their computer. Don’t worry; we will find a way.”
Al turned to Cody, “How about the missing skin Doc, will it grow back?”
“It will take time. I have a medical mesh I am going to apply to the wound on your side, and the one on your cheek to help it along. In time—.”
“My cheek? Let me see.”
Reluctantly, Ana held a mirror before his face. The reflective surface revealed a one-inch crescent-shaped chunk of skin scraped down to the metal, and it struck Al how close to dying he had been. The metal exposed on his face reminded him that if he were anyone else, he would be on a different table—with a tag on his toe.
For three days they worked on him. His body without power so he couldn’t move and his sensors disabled, so he felt none of it. With some trepidation, Commander Stevenson allowed Edward to hook up the alien reader salvaged from the island outpost and load the data cube that was Tiro into a sub-section of the main computer.
The parts for his hand were completed and installed, and the mesh was implanted into the worst of his wounds. When Cody finished, Al wore numerous bandages.
One day was spent in darkness, while they replaced his failing power pack. The other two days he watched as they labored to save the rest of his body. A mirror overhead allowed him to follow their efforts.
The team caught short naps when they could, and worked as if in a race. Al tried not talking, so they could concentrate on their work, but found it difficult to stay quiet. On the third day, he asked why he had no visitors, and the answer surprised him.
Ana glanced at Edward, who said, “Go ahead and tell him. He’ll know soon enough regardless.”
Anastasia Kossalowski, the Hiber-Pod specialist, and the first person Chris and Al woke on the Excalibur, looked down at him with sorrow in her eyes, “They do not like robots here Al—of any kind. Your being here has been kept a secret.”
“How did you manage that?”
“We commandeered this room in the medical center and locked it down. The Captain’s friend, Commander Stevenson, even placed a guard outside the door.”
“The Captain has a friend?”
She laughed, and said, “You haven’t lost your sense of humor. That’s a good sign.”
Edward interrupted. “We are almost done Al, let’s finish this up and get you home.”
Now it was time to power his body and run diagnostics.
The roboticist flipped two switches, and turned a dial, releasing Al from his imprisonment. The readings looked good on the monitor, so he was told to sit up and test his mobility. The only problem Al found was the hand seemed a little stiff.
“That will get better in time. There is a break-in period,” said Edward.
Al thought,
Like breaking-in a new car.
Edward asked him to stand. When he slipped off the table, and put his weight on his legs, he stumbled. He recovered quickly but was confused why it happened at all.
“Sit on the bed again,” ordered Edward. “Let me take a look.”
After ruling out numerous possibilities, they discovered one leg was half-an-inch shorter than the other.
Cody suggested, “It could only have happened when your feet hit the hatch at the top of the stairs. From what Chris told me, you hit the door pretty hard.”
“Try walking,” said Ana.
He stood again and slowly circled the room. There was a flaw in his cadence. A stutter in his gate. Al Clark, the Superman with the high-tech body, was limping.
“There is nothing we can do right now,” explained Edward. “I don’t know how to fix it. I’m not sure if we can. Regardless, we have to get you out of here. I hear that people are beginning to talk.”
Edward arranged for a security officer to come and escort them to the shuttle, where the same pilot that brought them here used the dark of night to whisk them away. Al watched as they flew away. He saw the lights of the massive ship and the streetlights spotlighting the quaint little town around it, and wished he could have seen more than the one small hospital room.
As the four intruders were being spirited away, the commander was attending another council meeting. Rumors were spreading about a stranger locked up in the medical center, that no one was allowed to see, and the president had questions.
“He was in critical condition, Theo, and they didn’t want to stop saving his life to entertain visitors,” replied the commander.
“Never the less, why have you placed a guard outside one of my surgical rooms, Mister Stevenson?”
“So they would not be disturbed,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I demand we go there and see why this matter requires so much secrecy!”
The commander, only a few minutes ago, heard the discrete double tap of a transmit button—two chirps from his radio. A pre-arranged message from his officer. “There is no need. He is gone. On his way back to the settlement.”
Theodore Sands felt the commander was hiding something. Trying to get something past the board behind his back. “This is not over Stevenson. If you want to help those people, you better be straight with me.”
“When have I ever
not
been straight with you, Theodore?”
If the president was going to throw away twenty years of military etiquette by calling him Stevenson, then the commander could call him Theodore.
The president was of the opinion that the military members of the community served no purpose. He frequently called the commander ‘Stevenson,’ and it was annoying.
The meeting ended abruptly.
Elizabeth and Chris greeted Al as he stepped carefully from the shuttle, and she noticed the difference right away. Her face changed quickly from joy to concern. “Why are you limping?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I might have shortened one leg a little…but it is easily fixed.”
“I know what you are made of Al. How do you lengthen a titanium leg?”
“Special shoes,” he replied. “One with a sole that is a half-inch thicker than the other.”
She did not like his answer but set her questions aside for later.
Lanterns and fires lit the camp, and the night helped to disguise his return. He was wearing his old cowboy hat again, to cover the wrappings on his head. Chris managed to save it before evacuating the island and drove the dune buggy to Rivertown to drop it off. Al had forgotten all about the hat and was grateful.
His smile under the black hat melted her heart. The headwear added to the large bandage on his cheek, and the oversized glove that covered his hand made for a pathetic looking creature. It made Elizabeth love him even more. “Let’s get you to the tent. You should not be on your feet,” she commanded.
“Can we go for a short walk first? I want to see how things are going.”
When she hesitated, Chris stepped up and took Al’s shoulder, helping to support him. “A quick one Mom. You know he won’t be able to rest until he does.”
The citizens of Rivertown could not have been more helpful to the newcomers. Groups of women went from house to house asking for spare blankets, pillows, tents, sleeping bags, and anything else useful. What they gathered was loaded in a shuttle, and shipped to the new camp. The men sacrificed some of their evenings, helping to erect living quarters, but most of their time they spent in the fields of Rivertown, and the harvest.
The displaced people from Atlantis picked their homesteads carefully and laid claim to specific sections of land around the lake. They were small plots, normally less than a quarter acre, which helped to keep the settlement small. When colonizing a strange new world, it was good to have neighbors nearby.
Al was surprised how much the meadow had changed in the short time he was gone. Makeshift housing and various sized tents littered the landscape. Smoke from open fires accompanied the smells of food cooking.
The two large tents were busy. The command tent for coordinate their efforts, and the food tent to refuel the hard-working colonists. It reminded Al of the massive refugee camps in Earths past. Smoky, dirty, and always noisy.