Children of the Source (18 page)

    Carson stood tossing the large bullets in his hand and studying me, lips turned down and brows knitted.
  I had a lot of explaining to do.  I hoped he would listen.  Fortunately, I’d never done anything violent toward anyone.  None of us had.  A big plus for us.  The guard bound Ren and Hensley’s hands behind their backs.  I released the hold on Ren’s balance and he sat up.

    Derek and his men returned, surrounding a dazed man in brown camouflaged fatigues.
  A ruined sniper’s rifle - tripod, barrel and scope melted and sagged.  The wood looked exploded.  One of the soldiers carried a backpack and a black parachute.  The man stood there, slowly returning to normal waking consciousness.  He blinked, swallowed, and looked around.  Alarm registered when he saw General Carson and Colonel Randolph.  Then he looked straight ahead and said nothing. 

    “Meet Gunnery Sergeant  Harry Akin, United States Marine Corp,”
  I said.  “Military trained assassin.  All legal and okay.”

    “Gunny?
  Is our friend right?  Your name and rank?”  Carson asked conversationally.

    The man stared straight ahead, lips tight.

    Derek leaned forward.  “Talk.  You’re facing a Military Tribunal in a Military Region.  You know what that means?”

    “I’m a dead man.”

    “I wouldn’t bet on your good health right now,”  Derek said.  “Who are you?”

    “You have my name and rank.”
  He smiled ruefully.  “Here I was due to retire next month.”

    “What are you doing shooting a General Officer and a civilian?”
  Derek said.

    “I was given my targets.
  I don’t ask a lot of questions.”

    “So it’s all okay.
  Just shoot who you’re told to shoot?” I said, astonished.

    “I was told the General was in cahoots with the aliens, and you were an alien who needed to be dealt with.”

    “So you assumed the aliens meant to do us harm and take over the world?”  Carson said.

    “Why else would they be here?”

    “Been looking at too many TV shows,” Derek observed, lashing the man’s hands behind his back.

    “Who was to take my place?”
  Carson asked Hensley.

    “
I was hoping for Major General Oscar ‘Bull’ Harold.  A righteous man.”

    Carson shook his head.
  “A religious fanatic.  Constantly preaching his bigoted version of Christianity.  Just what we need.  A man more than willing to start a war.”  He shook his head.  “General Jansen, Sixth Army Commander, wouldn’t have him in his command.”

   
Hensley’s lips curled.  “Everyone is replaceable.”

    “Just what we need.
  The wrong people in  power.  Creating the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan which nearly destroyed our military.  Allowing Wall Street to run wild and almost destroy the world’s economy.”  Carson started for the chopper.  “Let’s get these prisoners to the Fort.  They are to be kept in isolation from everyone and each other.  I have some phone calls to make.  Derek, you have some favors to call in.  Let’s go.”  He stopped at the chopper and turned to me.  “We have some talking to do, Mister.”  I nodded.

    Later that evening Judith and I took a walk.
  We stopped at a bench and its sheltering pine tree.  “I have something for you,” I said.  I fumbled in my pocket and retrieved a ring, holding it up for her to see.  A silvery looking ring mounted with an odd blue stone which glowed slightly, illuminating a faultlessly clear interior where a swirl of liquid smoke moved constantly in curiously beautiful patterns.  “It was in the box with the cuff.  Recognize it?”

    Her mouth opened in amazement.
  “It’s our pledging ring.  A living stone.  One you gave me while making the new worlds.  The Four Planet Federation.”  Tears stained her cheeks.

    I repeated the words we’d spoken so long ago, and watched her lips follow mine, “With these words we charge our bonding, giving freely to you as you do me.
  To share and celebrate our potentials, our hopes and dreams.  In this becoming we pledge our trust, our love, and our caring to each other and the adventure that is our relationship.”

    I slipped it on her finger next to her wedding ring.
  A perfect fit.  “Kodus and Marta say the memories and knowledge of their lives will be part of ours, and we will have to resolve some issues that haven’t be addressed.”

    “Like?”

    I held her hand and admired the ring. “Your Entity being the Queen of Adora for so many lives.  There are those who will want it back.  Your identity was masked during the making of the Four Planet Federation, but for some reason it will be known again.   I will have to deal with Kodus and the leftovers of the eugenics problem.  Somehow there are pieces that need to be laid to rest.  But what they are I don’t know.”

    “Or the players.”

    “That’s a big problem.  I have no idea.  Like Ren.  Hensley is still a mystery to me.  They have a trial coming up.  I’ll be called to testify.  It’s a mess.”

    “Fortunately there are no defense lawyers, jury or reporting press.
   Isolation is the best tool we have,” Judith said.  “All this might keep a lid on things.”

    “Amen to that.
  So nothing by accident.  Do you have any memories from your Entity and Marta we can access?”  I kissed her rings and then automatically placed my forehead on her hand.  I’d always done this since we had married but never understood it.  Until now.  This was the salute used to show respect to the Queen of Adora.

    She looked around, eyes searching the dark at the forty-five degree angle upward.
  “Mator said there was a couple that integrated themselves with your people.  They were moles from Akenton’s group used to gather intelligence.  They were never found.”

     “They may still be there unless they’ve changed.
  The Entities, if they still believe in eugenics, could create continuing personalities to follow in their footsteps.”  A scary thought.  “Also this couple could be a recipe for disaster if they have the sound language.”

    “How would you know?” Judith asked.

    I picked up a pine cone, feeling its shape and weight.  “There is a way.  Those that have it carry themselves differently.  They often look different.  The trick is finding how they believe.  We have to make sure you have the Sound Language so you can protect yourself and others.  There is a point beyond which I cannot go.”

    “Whoa.
  How do you know this?  You’ve been two places at once, even at different times.  Who says you can’t be more?  Is there any end to the knowledge and abilities of an Entity?  Perhaps those limitations are simply a matter of belief.  The doors you have opened may be just the beginning.”  Judith fingered her ring.  The blue smoke swirled within.

    Just the beginning.
  “I think we are about to be introduced to the aliens.”

    Judith said, “Do we have enough information?”

     “Gawd,” I said. “Do we ever have enough of that?  If someone had told me Ren/Locus existed before all this happened, I’d suggest they were crazy.  Also the Sound Language.  But it’s all real.  You know what really scares me?”

    “What?”

    “Consider that they have kept my cuff and your pledging ring for how long for this moment.  That says a great deal.  This hasn’t been by accident.  What next?”

    We didn’t have long to wait.
  Somewhere in the middle of the night, a disc-shaped spacecraft landed silent as a moth next to the airplane barn.  Daylight brought everyone to examine the craft.  A curious patterned rich green which looked more fabric than metal, but felt hard to the touch. The body was seamless with no windows or openings.  It stood on four, five-foot tall legs, making the craft fifteen feet high.

    Our people milled around the spacecraft, touching and speculating.
  Bob Hardin arrived with an extension ladder.  He placed it against the side of the craft and began to climb.  Several of us grabbed the ladder as it slid sideways off the slick side.  Judith and I watched as our people explored the outside of the craft.  “What is it, Jamie?” 

    I felt her warm hand in mine.
  “I sense an insect crying for help.”  I tilted my head, trying to explore.  I knew this was a time yet to be.  Something was happening even now.  A fragment.  One of those real points of time that you know will be yours in the future.  But I couldn’t make contact with the Being, only sense its extreme unhappiness.  I shook my head.  Nothing else made any sense around it, except the intense distress of the Being.

    “How odd.
  An insect in distress.”  Judith rubbed her square chin.

    “A spider to be exact.”
  I shrugged.

    “You said a time yet to be,” she said.

    “Not out loud.”  I looked at her.  Sharing thoughts.  Exact words.  Not often done.  What was I missing?  A sense of urgency meaning time.  I couldn’t touch the Being in a time line.  I had no choice but to wait.  But with my mind I promised help and relief when our time lines intersected.  Then it was gone.  Like it had never been.

    Florence ran a hand over a hump on one of the legs and the craft began to hum.
  Everyone stepped back.  Then two sections of the ship, each three feet wide folded down with built-in steps.  The interior of the ship lit, showing chairs, viewing screens, and consoles within.  Laith, Helen, and Florence went inside.   “Whatcha got there?” 

    Someone pressed a button and a screen came to life showing a small city with mountains, evergreens of a type we’d never seen, and a mountain lake.
  There were no roads, but park-like green belts with small two to three trains cars that traveled on what we assumed were rails that couldn’t be seen.  We saw small groups of people, but no pets as we think of them - like dogs and cats.

    No music sounded, but the feel of weather - wind, rustle of leaves, and sense of their sun and clouds pervaded the screen.
  Like we were there.

    The fascination with the craft and the screens captivated everyone.
  There were many buttons to push, and they all showed different aspect of the planet or planets.  We weren’t sure.  Animals, plant life, and the seasons introduced themselves.   We watched houses and buildings being built, but in ways we hadn’t imagined.  They were built into and with the landscape.  We saw no poverty or gigantic masses of people or vast cities.  No industrial or manufacturing areas.

    They’d obviously gone beyond the gimme stage, the need for religions and cultures that breed themselves into poverty for countless bizarre reasons.
  Knowledge was one, not fragmented.  Everyone, every civilization, needs a motivating reason.  Perhaps they were experiencing an entirely different reason, one we’d never encountered before because we weren’t mature enough to open doors to allow such a reality to happen.  To bring our two realities together might present problems never considered before.  But our way of living at Cheshire might blend with theirs as we were beyond the gimme stage and consistently sought to explore the whole nature of reality, not just the physical one.   But then again we were unknowingly the alien’s outpost in our world.  The unfolding was slowly taking place.  Just not in the way I expected.

    The idea that Entities or Souls were these spiritual giants giving birth to personalities and encouraging them from above or within to greater spiritual development was a lot of nonsense.
  Entities or Souls proved to be in various states of maturity with agendas all their own.   How they treated their personalities depended on many factors; from their maturity to the desire to use them to learn through experience, some quite horrendous without regards for what we would consider quality of life or justice.  So what type of Entities were behind the personalities of the aliens?  Were some of them still secretly enamored with eugenics?  I knew they enjoyed power and what could be done with it.  From Kodus’ memories, I knew he could be merciless and quite brutal.  As the Queen of Adora, Marta commanded the unquestioned obedience of a world.  I needed to access more memories of Kodus, and see if Judith could awaken some of Marta’s.  If I could be in several places at once, could they?  How many had the Sound Language?  I felt a vague uneasiness.  If we were the welcoming committee, what were we welcoming?

    In two
s and threes our community watched everything the consoles had to offer.  There were two buttons that had symbols on them that responded to no one.   One had the symbol of Kodus on it.  The other one we didn’t know.    

    We sent a messenger to the fort.
  In short order Carson’s command chopper settled on the road near the spacecraft.  Bob Hardin, our messenger, had hitched a ride back.  Carson and Derek Randolph were the only ones aboard except the pilot, Jack Howard.  I escorted them onto the spacecraft.  A couple of hours later, Carson pointed to the symbol for Kodus, and looked at me.  I had hoped to do this alone.  “I don’t know what’s going on here but this might hold some answers.  This Kodus was a so-called past life of yours?”

    I nodded. “Something like that.
  I’m not entirely sure of everything.”