The Rings of Hesaurun Page 9

  At that time, Stone was already large, towering over many of the workmen. The boss hired him on as a choke setter, which was hard, dangerous work, especially for a youngster. When a man made fun of his Irish name, Egan Seamus Stone, he promised himself never to utter it again. From then on, he used only his last name, thinking of himself as Stone. Whenever asked to sign something, he used his initials, E.S. Stone, but never again divulged his full name to anyone.

  By the time he was eighteen, the young man calling himself Stone was larger, stronger, and meaner than any man in the logging camps. At the first opportunity, he killed the man who made fun of his name by rolling a log over him and making it appear an accident. Soon after, he left the logging camps, working his way north until he eventually ended up in Seattle. There he took on a variety of jobs. Due to his size and intimidating physique, it wasn’t long before a bookie noticed him, and young Stone began working as a debt collector. He liked it because it was quick, easy money.

  The second thing that bothered Stone now about the check was the amount of the draft, $1,500.00— at least ten times what the job was worth. It just didn’t make sense to him. But, for that kind of money, it was the sort of gravy train he was willing to ride. If he dragged his feet, he could make the job last for at least a couple of weeks, which meant he could get that house in Ballard by the end of the month. He viewed the check as the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

  Why is Evers so eager to throw his wallet at me? Stone wondered, scratching his head. Is the outcome worth that much to him? Maybe I’m missing something. Whatever it is, I can’t see it.

  Stone played every possible scenario over in his head. Evers sure has done his groundwork; there is only one way he could have known my full name. To get that little tidbit, he would have had to go to the trouble of tracing me to California, New York, and all the way back to Ireland, which would be time-consuming and expensive.

  This idea troubled Stone. Why bother? Why would anyone go to the trouble of researching my background before hiring me to tail a woman around town? What could possibly be so important that Evers would pay ten times what it’s worth to put names and faces on two people he had already identified? Surely his goal wasn’t money—he’d just proved he had enough of that. Was it the desire for more power? Probably, Stone thought. What else would a politician want other than power and money?

  When the truth struck Stone, like a sizzling bolt of lightning, it all came together at once. Evers is deputy mayor. This whole thing has to be about creating a scandal damaging enough to take the mayor down! If the mayor went down hard enough, Evers would be tapped to fill in as interim mayor. Once in office, Evers would protect his position by using Stone as his enforcer.

  Stone laughed so hard he choked. That’s it! Only this scenario answered the question as to why Evers had so thoroughly researched his past. No doubt, he needed someone to rely on to bust knees when needed—someone without a history, just like him. In his mind, Evers proved that to be true when he had the money order written to Egan Seamus Stone.

  Stone considered the mystery solved. Just one question remained unanswered; where did the money come from? He intended to find out on Evers’ dime and send him the bill for it. Stone loved the absurdity of making Evers pay to have someone investigate himself.

  Chapter 5

  The Dreamer. January 2431 BCE.

  Tierney laid his trembling hands on his father’s body. Overcome with grief by Pearse’s loss, the boy kissed his father goodbye, then wept bitterly. Without him, he and his family were destined to starve.

  It was only a matter of time. For Tierney, this moment marked the beginning of the end for him and his family. Although devastated by the tragedy, he was also pragmatic. He knew he didn’t have the strength to carry his father’s body all the way home without help. To do it alone would be beyond his physical ability. But that meant leaving his father’s body behind in the freezing snow. With wild animals in the area, he was reluctant to do so. But as Tierney saw it, he had no other choice.

  Reluctantly he began planning the grim task. Wrapping the body in skins before burying it seemed like the right thing to do. The work would be hard without a shovel, but Tierney thought he could do it using his father’s big knife. He planned to mark the place with a stick so he could find it when he returned for the body with his mother.

  Before setting to work, Tierney placed a loving hand on his father’s chest one last time. Suddenly his heart pounded. Movement, he felt movement! It was faint, there wasn’t much, and he wasn’t sure, so he stayed with it. Although barely perceptible, there it was. He felt it again. His father’s chest was rising and falling rhythmically. Hope ignited in him all at once. His father was still alive!

  Overcome with a combination of hope and excitement the boy leaped to his feet. “Yes!” he cried to the heavens, celebrating the joy and relief he felt. However, upon closer examination, he realized his father’s skin had grown cold. He needed to remedy that immediately! Hurriedly, he laid out the waterproof skins and cocooned his father in them. When Tierney had finished, nothing was left exposed to the frigid air but Pearse’s nose. Then he stayed by his father’s side, talking to him, rubbing his head with one hand while monitoring his chest’s movement with the other.

  Gradually Pearse began to warm up. As his body warmed, his breathing became more noticeable, finally strengthening to the point where it appeared normal. Seeing his father stir, the boy knew he had made the right decision to wrap him in oilskins. He was proud to have had made the right choice and knew his father would agree. But most of all, he was thankful he had been able to save his father.

  Pearse’s eyes fluttered open momentarily, although without focusing. Then he laid still for a few more minutes. The next time his eyes opened, they stayed wide and focused on his son Tierney, who was hovering like a bumblebee over a flower.

  “Why am I hot?” Pearse croaked weakly.

  “I saw that you were cold, so I wrapped you up in the oilskins,” said the boy. Without answering Pearse closed his eyes again and rested quietly. Tierney was well aware of the danger of sweating in freezing weather. The risk of hyperthermia was always present, so he untied and loosed the oilskins as a preventative measure.

  Although Pearse was alive clearly, he was in no condition to travel. Unfortunately, that meant they would be spending the night in the flattened crater, with nothing larger than a pebble to break the wind. There was no firewood nor tentpoles anywhere in sight, which meant Tierney would have to go over the wall to obtain the supplies required to make it through the night. However, going over the side of the crater alone and in the dark scared Tierney. The approaching darkness and the presence of wild animals were unavoidable realities he would have to deal with.

  Tierney summoned his courage, then woke his father by patting his cheek. “Father,” he whispered, “I’ am going to go over the wall to find firewood and tent poles. We’re going to spend the night here. I will be back soon.”

  ________________________ The hard landing threw the ship’s crew and company into disarray. The vessel was immersed in darkness, the only illumination provided by sparks and flickering lights: acrid smoke and the strobing lights combined to produce an otherworldly effect on the bridge.

  Once the vessel had settled in place, Guyidian Thetis, The Dreamer’s human commander, sat up, cradling his right arm. Guyidian guessed correctly that the bone was broken above the elbow. His head throbbed from slamming the floor, and his arm ached. As he struggled to assess his condition, he heard moans and cries for help. Those voices were a call to action, helping to clear Guyidian’s mind and set himself in motion.

  Guyidian discovered he was just one among many of the multi-species crew that was injured and disoriented. Pushing himself from the floor with his good arm, he winced at the pain as he staggered to a nearby control console for support. Within moments his mind had cleared enough to begin contemplating a course of action.

  Flickering images of others moving a
bout the bridge scalded his vision. Lieutenant Borst was immediately identifiable for no other reason than his prodigious bulk. At six-foot-six, over four-hundred pounds, Borst’s form was unmistakable in the gloom.

  “Borst! Help me out here, will you?”

  “Commander Thetis?”

  “That’s right, over here at systems control.” Borst moved quickly between flashes of light. One

  moment he was invisible, obscured by smoke and darkness, then reappeared directly in front of Guyidian, his massive face too close for comfort, which startled the ship’s commander. It didn’t help that the big man’s face was a mosaic of tattoos that made his image appear monstrous in the swirling smoke and flickering lights.

  “Are you alright, commander?” asked Borst, looking down on Guyidian.

  “A little banged up, but I’ll survive. Let’s see if we can get the lights back on.”

  Borst rattled around under the control console and came up with a solar torch and lit it. Guyidian followed Borst’s lead until the light fell on the ship’s Navari navigator leaning against a wall keening, her black carapace nearly invisible in the darkness even with the light shining directly on her. Cresson clasped her thorax with all six appendages frozen in apparent agony, which concerned Guyidian.

  “Cresson?” the commander called, but there was no response from the beetle-like creature. Guyidian knelt beside the Navarian for a closer look. “What happened to her lights? Usually, she’s lit up like a Christmas tree from top to bottom. I have never seen her go dark like this.”

  “Sir, this is common with an injured Navari; it’s called effulgence,” said Borst.

  “How do you know, lieutenant?”

  “I crewed on a Navari vessel, I’ve seen it before,” Borst admitted. “When seriously injured, they go into effulgence, which is similar to hibernation. It allows them to focus their energy on healing.”

  Guyidian tapped the Navarian’s head with a forefinger. “Hello? Cresson, can you hear me?”

  “Sir, I would not recommend trying to wake her up!” Borst warned, backing quickly away.

  “Why not?”

  “You know what a hypnic jerk is, right?” Borst said from a safe distance.

  “Sure, night jerks.”

  “Well, you have never seen a hypnic jerk until you wake a Navari from effulgent hibernation. Wake her up now and you stand a good chance she will jump up and bite your head off— literally.”

  Oh, Guyidian mouthed silently with eyes wide, then stood and backed up beside Borst. The lieutenant touched his commander’s shoulder gently.

  “Let her be. The doc will take care of her,” Borst recommended.

  “Sounds good,” Guyidian agreed, exhaling hard. “Let’s see what other surprises await.” Then the pair moved on.

  Together they scanned the battered vessel. Guyidian was stunned to find Kenzil, his Tholian systems engineer, lying in a pool of transparent blood, the apparent victim of a severe head wound. Dear Lord, not Kenzil! The man had been his friend, so Kenzil’s death was a personal blow. Guyidian was staggered by the loss. Tears welled, but he wiped them away; there could be others, he couldn’t stop to mourn. Ship and crew had to come first. The time for mourning his friend would have to come later.

  Guyidian sensed other crew members moving among the sparks, smoke, and flickering lights. Intercom chatter began to pick up, and workstation monitors shuddered back to life making the situation seem more manageable. Slowly but surely, The Dreamer was coming back to life.

  As ship commander, Guyidian needed a vessel-wide damage assessment, and he needed it quickly. With so many systems offline, The Dreamer was immobile and defenseless. He couldn’t wait; he had to take action. The ship and its company were far too important to go unprotected for another nanosecond.

  “Borst!” Guyidian called as he slid into a seat at one of the workstations with a grunt. The big man’s tattooed face mysteriously reappeared from the gloom and flashing lights.

  “Sir?” Borst answered dutifully.

  “What a mess, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go to sickbay and see if you can get Dr. Ipekk up here,” Guyidian ordered.

  As Borst rambled off, the commander thought; This is bad—real bad. The ship is damaged, and we don’t know where we are. The Boecki could have brought us here and we would never know it. We have injuries and deaths aboard. Then his throat tightened—and I have lost a close friend!

  Guyidian’s eyes welled up again. He wanted to rub his aching head, but that wasn’t possible while cradling a broken arm. Unlike the Boecki, his enemy, he was one pair of arms short of being able to rub away the pain.

  In addition to being genuinely concerned for his ship and crew’s safety, Guyidian was frustrated and angry. The mission he had bought into appeared simple at the outset; return the Ring Bearer and her entourage to Earth. That seemed easy enough. As expected, the crossing had been unremarkable most of the way. However, days before arriving at destination Earth, every operating system, instrument, and control on the ship suddenly locked up or shut down.

  Although everyone seemed to have a theory, none explained what happened or what they could do to change their unfortunate situation. Course-plotting froze in place, navigation controls were unresponsive, and sensors all went dead at once. Even the ship’s chronometer stopped working as if time itself no longer existed. It seemed as if they had entered a zone of darkness where everything ceased functioning, and time stood still.

  And yet, The Dreamer seemed to continue on its previously-programmed course, decelerating toward its rendezvous with Earth. That, however, was impossible. Deceleration from faster than light speed was a factored computation. If guidance controls locked up or shut down for any reason, the ship would not continue decelerating at the preprogrammed rate.

  Guyidian’s conclusion? Something or someone must have been monitoring and managing the ship’s deceleration and descent. Without control management, the ship would sail by Earth at near light speed, or crash into it. There were no options; it was one way or the other. The only assumption that made any sense to him was this; someone or something had a continuing hand in the ship’s guidance.

  Yet, here he and his crew found themselves trying to recover from a hard landing. About the only thing they were sure of was they had landed on a planet. But which one? Where? Guyidian couldn’t even confirm which solar system they were in, let alone which planet they were on.

  The vessel was damaged, with injuries and deaths aboard. Guyidian saw it as a miracle anyone survived the crash. Was it luck? He didn’t believe in luck. Starship commanders were pragmatists; they had to be. They didn’t have time for luck or fate, and certainly not the sort of luck or fate that drove his ship without his consent or knowledge. So the questions remained. Who or what had controlled the ship’s deceleration and landing?

  Building frustration got the better of Guyidian as he punched a button on the console with his good elbow.

  “This is Commander Thetis on the bridge,” he said in a ship-wide announcement. “I need a damage assessment from each section manager immediately.” Guyidian waited patiently for a response, but none came. The pressure in his head increased as he waited, all the while wondering if the ship’s communications system worked on all levels. The commander waited a minute more, then tried again, this time raising his voice in exasperation—

  “This is Commander Thetis on the bridge! Report!” he demanded. He waited. No reply came. About the time he was ready to try again, he finally received a response.

  “Commander, this is Hafian Tohm, in Medical! Give us a few minutes! The Ring Bearer and I are assisting the injured.”

  “Thank you, Mister Tohm,” Guyidian said, his worst fears allayed. After a moment’s thought, he asked, “Mister Tohm, can I assume she is uninjured?”

  “Don’t worry, Commander,” answered Tohm, the tone of his voice filling Guyidian with almost indescribable relief. “Valerie is unharmed.”

  I need
ed to hear that! Guyidian thought as a wave of relief washed over him. The last thing I needed to hear was that The Ring Bearer was injured—or worse. What would we do if we lost Valerie Dunne? One thing is certain; if we lose her, we are finished—everyone and everything is finished!

  Guyidian relaxed, relieved as he reflected on The Ring Bearer. This woman and her iconic ship had been synonymous for more than a thousand years. The Dreamer had been built by renegade Boeckian sympathizers, specifically for The Ring Bearer. Valerie Dunne and her vessel had leveled the playing field for Earth and their allies the moment it appeared on the scene.

  Recalling all she’d accomplished and what she meant to his people made his heart swell with pride. Guyidian and his crew of volunteers had been handpicked from threatened worlds and survivors throughout the galaxy. Although selected from the ranks of the Boeckian Resistance Union, he and his team followed The Ring Bearer’s orders exclusively. She and her ship were considered irreplaceable assets to be protected at any cost. Guyidian wasn’t about to allow anything to happen to Valerie Dunne or The Dreamer on his watch. He wouldn’t hesitate to put his life on the line for her or her ship, and he was far from alone in that consensus.

  But recent events caused grave concern for her safety and that of his crew. Before encountering the blackout, an encrypted message came in from the BRU that chilled Guyidian to the bone. It warned that the Boecki Imperium had learned from prisoners taken that The Ring Bearer had been responsible, at least in part, for virtually every setback they’d suffered during the past millennium. BRU Command had evidence the Boecki were concentrating their forces in an all-out effort to eliminate her once and for all.

  Taking prisoners for intel purposes was accepted as a given in any prolonged conflict. However, the Boecki considered themselves so far above other life forms they didn’t care what inferior species knew or didn’t know. The sad truth about that was they were right. Without help from their own scientists, BRU star systems would have been harvested by the Boecki for their resources long ago.