NOSTROMO IN SPACE AND TIME by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

Captain Tina Forster

Chairwoman Jeanne Mercier NAU President Sylvia Johnson 10:10 (Washington Time)

Saturday, May 13, 2339

South lawn of the White House

Washington, D.C., North American Union

Earth, Solar System

Anyone from the early 21st Century who would look at the White House of 24th Century Washington could be excused for wondering about the good state of such an old building. The catch was that the White House of 2339 was actually a relatively recent, forty-year-old replica of the old 19th Century original building, which itself had been rebuilt after being ‘remodeled’ by British troops in 1812. The gardens and lawns of the White House had also been preserved and cared for in their original, 21st Century state. Now, a small interstellar shuttle was just landing smoothly and nearly silently on the South Lawn, watched by North American Union President Sylvia Johnson and four Secret Service agents. The aft access ramp of the shuttle soon lowered, letting out Tina Forster, Spacers’ League Chairwoman Jeanne Mercier, Security Officer Stacy Keibler and two Spacers’ League Executive Protection Detail officers. The freshly arrived group then walked to President Johnson, who greeted Tina and Jeanne Mercier with a handshake.

‘’Welcome to Washington, Captain Forster, Chairwoman Mercier. I must say that I am dying to learn the reason why we are meeting here today.’

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‘’You can blame Captain Forster on that, Madam President.’ replied Jeanne Mercier, her expression most serious. ‘’What she told me only yesterday shook me to the core, even though it mostly concerned the North American Union. However, I agreed with her that what she wants to tell you must be kept strictly confidential, even from your own White House staff and from your vice-president.’

‘’Dear God! What could be so grave to justify such secrecy?’’

‘’Something truly horrible, Madam President.’ answered Tina, also most serious.

‘’We wil need maximum intimacy for our meeting: no cameras, no recordings, just us.’

Sylvia Johnson gave Tina a bit of a suspicious look, intrigued by her request. However, the past couple of decades had proved Tina Forster and her gigantic ship to be worthy of being taken very seriously. Johnson thus pointed to the West Wing annex of the White House, where the Oval Office was situated.

‘’Very well. If you wil follow me to the Oval Office.’

‘’Uh, could we use your Situation Room instead, Madam President?’’ asked Tina.

‘’It is located underground and is thus less susceptible to eavesdropping than the Oval Office, which has large patio doors and windows visible from the street.’

‘’We could do that.’ answered Johnson, now seriously wondering what could justify such level of security paranoia.

They still entered the West Wing via the patio doors of the Oval Office but then simply walked across it, exiting it before using the staircase leading to the basement, where the Situated Room was located. Still followed by the four Secret Service agents and by the three security officers, the trio entered the heavily protected Situation Room.

However, at Tina’s request, the security agents stayed outside of the armored door, leaving Sylvia Johnson to sit down with Tina Forster and Jeanne Mercier at the long conference table. Johnson took the time to deactivate all the cameras and microphones located inside the room before looking sharply at Tina Forster.

‘’So, Captain Forster, what is it that justifies this level of confidentiality?’’

‘’It relates to the recent ability of my ship to travel through time, Madam President. As you well know, when we returned to the year 2337 after being most involuntarily projected back in time by close to 2,900 years, we brought back a number of recordings of a few historical events, collected along our way back with four persons from the past. I believe that our historical documentaries about the death of Joan of Arc

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and about Jack the Ripper made a real splash in the North American Union, along with the brief visit by Amelia Earhart.’

‘’They sure did, Captain Forster. I myself couldn’t help cry while watching the execution of Joan of Arc by the English in Orléans. Don’t tell me that this meeting is being held because of something you saw in the past?’’

‘’No! It is because of something I saw in the future, Madam President. By the way, I would like the fact that I went to the future to be kept strictly confidential, and this for very serious reasons.’

‘’You visited the future? When? Why?’’

‘’The when is four days ago. The why is because of a premonition I had about something bad happening to Humanity in the near to medium future. I then quickly enough found out that my worries were justified, Madam President. Know that, on May First of 2355, most of North America will be destroyed by a twin natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions: namely a Magnitude 9.3 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which will raze most of the Northwest coast of the continent and obliterate the regions of Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. Even worse, that earthquake will somehow awaken the Yellowstone Super volcano Caldera, along with the Mount Rainie and Mount St-Helens volcanoes. The resulting eruptions will send up in the atmosphere huge quantities of volcanic ash, which will then cover most of the North American continent and will trigger a brutal drop in temperature that will in turn kill much of the vegetation, crops and animals. That ash cloud will even cross the Atlantic and deposit some ash over Western Europe. The initial number of people killed by the earthquake and tsunami and by the blasts and pyroplastic clouds from those eruptions will be estimated at about 59 million people, with over a hundred million more dying shortly later on due to mud flows, fires and famine. Those who will survive will then find themselves in the equivalent of a nuclear winter, with little food or water available and with most transportation modes paralyzed. The global drop in temperatures will also cause crop failures all over the planet, causing more havoc and deaths and resulting in a general breakdown in social order. The Spacers’ League did react nearly instantly to that disaster, sending help and supplies and also assisting in the evacuation of the worst-hit areas. Most of those evacuees were then transported and relocated to the planet Asiana, in the case of Asian refugees, and to Jamieson’s World, in the case of North American and European refugees, with other worlds of the Spacers’ League also used for relocation. However, the amount of death and suffering from that twin disaster

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in 2355 will be truly heartbreaking, with the estimated final death tally reaching over half a bil ion people, with many more lives being left shattered.’

Sylvia Johnson, now as pale as a bed sheet, couldn’t speak for many seconds, a big bal down her throat.

‘’Dear God! What could we do to prevent this, in your opinion?’’

‘’To prevent it? Nothing, Madam President. This disaster will be a purely natural one and we simply have no technical way to prevent or stop it from happening at that date. We have no way to control the movements of a subduction zone, while trying to prevent or diminish the eruptions by, for example, drilling down to the magma layers, could result in wildly unpredictable results. The only possible answer for us, in my humble opinion, will be to gradually push for as much emigration to other planets as possible without creating a general panic and hysteria, thus decreasing the number of fatalities caused by that twin disaster. However, if word of this comes out too early, then we risk a complete breakdown in social order, mass riots and possibly civil war.’

Johnson was again silent for a moment before giving a critical look at Tina.

‘’Are you sure about all this, Captain Forster? Are your numbers factual or are they mere estimates?’’

In response, Tina took her laptop out of her briefcase and opened it, then put it on the table, in front of Johnson’s position, starting a video file on it.

‘’Here are the observations and data I collected in 2355 aboard one of my command cutters. It is a bit long, at 79 minutes, but is well worth fully watching it, Madam President. Chairwoman Mercier already visioned it, so we will keep quiet while you watch it.’

With cold sweat on her forehead and pale lips, Sylvia Johnson started watching the video produced in 2355 and then carefully edited by Tina in order to hide the true producers of the video file. While she did so, both Tina and Jeanne Mercier kept quiet, letting her concentrate on the presentation.

Sylvia Johnson looked about to throw up when she finished viewing the video file. Tina then closed that file before stuffing back her laptop in her briefcase.

‘’I am sorry if I don’t let you keep a copy of that video file, Madam President, but I believe that nobody else but the three of us must know about this at this time.’’

‘’Why? Why can’t we inform my citizens about this, so that we could start right away to make preventive measures.’

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‘’Why? For three main reasons, Madam President. First, the widespread distribution of that information now would result in widespread panic, hysteria and chaos.

Second, many will say that this is wholly invented, in order for me to somehow profit from the following social disorder and panic. Third, others in the North American Union may use this as a pretext to throw your government out, so that they could in turn seize power. Don’t forget that this wil happen in sixteen years, by which time you will be long gone from office. Who knows who will succeed you, especially if this information will create political agitation and social disorder.’

‘’What about the crew of your command cutter, Captain Forster? They also must know about this. How can you be sure that they won’t spread that information around them, even if it is done unintentionally?’’

‘’They won’t, for the simple reason that they were all androids, able to reason without being affected by emotions.’

Apparently taken off balance by Tina’s arguments, Johnson thought furiously for a moment before nodding her head once.

‘’Okay! Let’s say that I accept your logic on this. What do you advocate that we do then? We can’t simply sit down and die without doing anything.’

‘’What we could do is to use subtlety and long-term planning in order to minimize the amount of death and suffering, Madam President. However, short of evacuating in advance the whole planet, something I consider to be next to impossible without causing mass chaos, we simply can’t avoid the mass casualties you saw in my video file. If you would analyze the data shown in my video, you would quickly realize that the population of North America and of Asia in 2355 was actually much lower than what the present predictions about population growth say. That’s because, in the next sixteen years, over one and a half billion persons emigrated from Earth, to go live on new worlds around the Spacers’ League. What we need to do right now is to continue encouraging that emigration movement, while investing in those new worlds, like Asiana and Jamieson’s World. Those two planets alone easily have the capacity to absorb two to three billion new inhabitants, if their development is pursued at a brisk pace. Many other worlds of the Spacers’ League, like Atlantis, Providence, New Venice, New Polynesia, Vinland, Utopia, Gemini, El Dorado and Jurassika, are prime colonization planets which are still very lightly populated and which could absorb hundreds of millions of extra immigrants, if properly prepared in advance for these new citizens.’’

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‘’I can tell you that, on my part, I wil push for an accelerated infrastructure growth across the Spacers’ League.’ added Jeanne Mercier. Johnson then looked at Tina.

‘’What about your own world of New Haven, Captain?’

‘’I already have been pushing for many years the accelerated development of New Haven, Madam President. However, its main contribution will be in terms of food production, which is already the mainstay of its economy and will stay so. I intend to greatly boost its production of meat, fresh fruits, vegetables and fish in ways that won’t need massive infrastructure investments. New Haven has been pursuing for nearly twenty years already a long-term program of seeding and planting across its surface and oceans and all those new plants and marine life have had time to grow and expand on their own and are now fully mature and ready for exploitation. I also have been continuing my program of relocation to New Haven of refugees from wars and famines on Earth, mostly with people from Africa and from the Indian sub-continent. Those refugees were then finally able to find peaceful, just new lives on my corporate world.

There is still plenty of space and resources available on New Haven to accommodate many more such refugees and I fully intend to welcome them.’

Sylvia Johnson stared at both Tina and Jeanne for a moment, a ball still in her throat.

‘’Very wel : I wil try my best to push for an accelerated emigration program, notably by giving financial incentives for emigration to my citizens who would wish to do so. However, don’t forget that I am strictly limited in terms of time allowed in office: I only have twenty months left in my second and final mandate as president of the NAU.

After that, I simply can’t guarantee what my successor wil think about that emigration program.’

‘’I understand that, Madam President.’ said Tina. ‘’We can only act on what we can control, after all.’

Tina then got up from her seat, imitated by Jeanne Mercier, and shook hands with Sylvia Johnson.

‘’I am sorry to have brought you such awful news from the future, Madam President, but I simply couldn’t keep this a secret from you, as your people wil be the ones paying the biggest price in this incoming disaster. Again, you can count on our help in this, Madam President.’

‘’And I am most grateful, both for the warning and for your offer of help, Captain Forster. Let me accompany you and Chairwoman Mercier back to your shuttle.’’

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Leading Tina and Jeanne up to ground level and walking with them out of the West Wing, Johnson accompanied her two visitors up to the access ramp of the waiting shuttle, where she again shook hands with the two women.

‘’Again, thank you for the warning. Have a safe trip back to your homes.’

The access ramp closed up seconds after that and Johnson then stepped back to a safe distance, to watch the small craft fly silently off the White House lawn, to soon disappear in the sky as it climbed upwards. As Sylvia Johnson walked back to the West Wing, she looked at her hands, which were slightly shaking.

‘’God! The years to come will assuredly be the most miserable ones of my life.’

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CHAPTER 7 – MEAT ON THE HOOF

13:22 (Universal Time)

Monday, May 15, 2339

Government administrative center, City of Camelot New Haven (Wolf 1061ca), moon of planet New Shouria (Wolf 1061c) Wolf 1061 star system, 13.8 light-years from Earth Piotr Romanski greeted Tina Forster with a hug and kisses on the cheeks the moment she entered the conference room used by the executive committee of New Haven.

‘’Tina, Tina, it has been way too long since your last visit to the surface of New Haven.’

‘’Well, I have been kind of busy lately, Piotr.’ replied Tina in a remorseful tone.

‘’Just helping the Koorivars to lodge their half a million refugees we went to save on Shouria in the past took a lot of my time and I am now fully committed to supporting the building up of new colonies on Asiana and Jamieson’s World.’

‘’I understand, Tina. For you, saving the Galaxy or other people in peril is a full-time vocation. So, what is the reason for your visit today?’’

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‘’Something that I am keeping strictly confidential in order to avoid spreading panic around me. Could we discuss together in strict intimacy, Piotr, with no cameras or microphones recording us?’’

Piotr became instantly serious and nodded his head at once. His many years of working with Tina on the KOSTROMA had made him know her very well. If she asked for such privacy, then you could be sure that it was not for some frivolous reasons.

‘’Consider it done, Tina. Take a seat while I shut off the security systems of this room.’

Tina did so and patiently waited until Piotr, who she had designated as the Chief Executive Officer of New Haven after she had been given the moon by the grateful Koorivars, sat next to her at the table.

‘’Alright, Tina, tell me what is bothering you.’

‘’Well, it all came because of my new ability to travel through time with my ships.

Until recently, all my time travel involved past historical periods. No more! Recently, a bad premonition pushed me into sending a command cutter to the future, in order to explore the next few decades to come and find out if some big disaster was going to hit us. Well, we did find out that such a disaster will hit Humanity in 2355.’

Piotr stiffened at once but stayed silent, letting Tina tell him in detail what she had found in 2355 and what she did then with that information. At the end of her revelation, Piotr sat back, his expression most somber.

‘’My God! This is about the worst thing that could possibly strike Earth. And we are going to simply sit and let it happen?’’

‘’No! We are going to do something to at least mitigate the loss of life from that cataclysm, Piotr. That is why I am here today: to prepare New Haven to help the evacuees from Earth in 2355 and to be able to receive more immigrants from Earth before this will happen. The key for us to do this will be to dramatically increase food production capacity but in a way that will not mean huge food wastage or astronomical production costs which could bankrupt our corporation.’’

‘’And how do you intend to do that, Tina?’’

‘’By a very simple, economical and effective method: meat on the hoof. I intend to greatly expand the free-roaming herds of cattle we already exploit on New Haven, so that we have instant access to lots of proteins when we will need it. As you know well, free-roaming cattle doesn’t cost a dime in food, upkeep or personnel time: you just let those animals graze vegetation to their content while they multiply by themselves.

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Hopefully, we still have enough vacant grasslands, savannahs and forests around New Haven to support those extra herds, right?’’

Piotr Romanski gave her a benevolent smile while bending slightly forward, his forearms crossed on top of the table.

‘’My dear Tina, you are now repeating the same mistake a lot of people do when they judge the potential of New Haven. Yes, New Haven is smaller than Earth by about twenty percent but they tend to forget that our moon does not have huge oceans which cover two-thirds of its surface, like on Earth. Yes, we do have plenty of lakes, some of them huge ones which would be considered as inland seas on Earth, but New Haven still ends up with a lot more arable and habitable land than Earth does, with much of that land surface having a temperate to warm climates perfect for animals and people. On the other hand, we still have less than three million inhabitants at the present, even after sixteen years of immigration from Earth, something that leaves huge surfaces of usable forests and grasslands available for free-roaming herds of herbivores. If you take for example our Katanga Plain, with its surface area of over 83 million square kilometers of forests, grasslands, savannahs and lakes, it is about as big as the Atlantic Ocean. We could sustain absolutely huge numbers of herbivores, just using the space still available in the Katanga Plain. Our next two largest plains, the Assiniboine and Appalachian Plains, total by themselves another 72 million square kilometers of forests, grasslands and lakes. And I am not talking yet about our plateaux, which are covered by a mix of forests, grasslands, lakes and mountains. Those plateaux total together a bit more in terms of surfaces of land than the surface of the whole Pacific Ocean. You want grazing lands for herds? You got them aplenty here, Tina! So, we only have to find those extra cattle heads. However, for us to buy tens of thousands of heads of cattle will be very expensive. There is also the fact that such a number of animals would be hard to find these days. The present cattle market already has difficulties providing enough beasts to feed Humanity.’

Tina smiled as Piotr finished talking.

‘’Piotr, you were always cool-headed and logical about problems and I love you for that. You have the grazing lands; I will find you those extra heads of cattle...for free.’

‘’Uh, how are you going to pull that miracle, Tina?’’

‘’By getting them in the past, Piotr. Then, we will let those animals multiply by themselves along the years while they stuff themselves on free grass, berries and roots.’

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07:52 (Universal Time)

Saturday, May 20, 2339

Bridge sphere of the heavy cargo shuttle FERRY MAN

Large craft hangar complex, A.M.S. NOSTROMO

In orbit around New Haven (Wolf 1061ca)

Doctor Shania Bearheart was quite excited as she took one of the observers’ seats in the bridge sphere of the heavy cargo shuttle FERRY MAN, and for two good reasons: first, the cargo shuttle was due to travel back in time in order to go capture a herd of American bison and, second, it would be going to the ancient territory of the Native American tribe she descended from, the Ojibwe, which lived around the American Great Lakes area hundreds and thousands of years ago. Sitting next to her on the other observers’ seats behind the pilot’s and copilot’s stations were Carla Lombardi, the young assistant veterinarian who was going to work with her, and Eve Silisca, who was acting as mission advisor. The android smiled to Shania as the zoologist and veterinarian sat down to her left.

‘’Happy and excited about going on this mission, Shania?’

‘’You bet I am, Eve! At the present, only a few Bisons are left alive, their species having nearly become extinct for a number of reasons during the last two centuries.

About half of those surviving bison now live on New Haven and they seem to like the types of plants and vegetation growing there. To be able to watch herds of thousands of Bisons in a place where my tribal ancestors lived wil be like a dream come true for me.’

‘’Well, we wil certainly get to see lots of bison soon, especially since we are going to effect multiple return trips between this year and the distant past. What we want is to capture many separate herds of bison, with a minimum of a few hundred beasts per herd, and then bring them to widely separated regions of New Haven, to ensure that some disease or other natural calamity doesn’t wipe them all out in one shot.

That will also ensure that those herds will find plenty of grass to graze as they move around.’

‘’And I approve of this precaution, Eve.’’

‘’Changing slightly the subject, I understand that you speak the Ojibwe language, Shania. What are the chances that the language of the natives living around the

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American Great Lakes in 5,000 B.C.E. will be close to or similar to the Ojibwe you know?’’

Shania made a grimace at that question.

‘’I am not too optimistic about that, Eve. Just look at how much the English language evolved in only a few centuries. I may be able to understand a few basic words here and there but that’s about it. Besides, we don’t want to interfere with the local natives during our mission, or even to show ourselves to them.’

‘’Correct! That is why we will mostly work on the ground at night or in the early morning hours.’

‘’Uh, how safe is this time travel business, Eve?’ asked the 28-year-old Carla Lombardi, sitting to the right of Eve.

‘’In terms of the traveling itself: quite safe, Carla. By now, both the NOSTROMO

and the command cutter AEGIS have traveled multiple times through time, both to the past and to the future. The only thing is that, the larger the temporal displacement, the less precise the time jump will be. However, we are talking about inexactitudes in dates of arrival of only a few days or, at the most, a few years when really long jumps are concerned. For that reason, on our return trip, we will make a transit stop in the early 20th Century, where we will be able to ascertain our exact time of arrival via the publicly broadcasted radio programs, and this before making our subsequent jump back to 2339.

But our time spent in the past is another matter, if you are planning ground activities.

Local inhabitants, if they encounter us, may react in unpredictable ways, too often in a violent manner. Local animals may also attack us, like in the case of wolves, especially in the case of us being near a herd of bison, one of their main sources of food. But don’t worry too much, Carla: we have with us twelve security androids who are also accomplished horse riders, thanks to their participation in our periodic medieval tournaments, where they engage in mounted combat and jousting. They are all true badasses and they are led by Jehanne de Domrémy, our most experienced and battle-hardened security android. With them around us, you will be quite safe while working in the field.’’

‘’Thanks, Eve! I feel more reassured already.’

A few minutes later, having done a pre-flight instruments check, their pilot, Bernard Merchant, announced that they were ready to fly out of the NOSTROMO.

Under the control of its regular crew, the 200-meter-diameter lenticular-shaped heavy

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shuttle flew out via the 1,200-meter-long access tunnel for heavy craft and emerged into dark Space. One minute later, the FERRY MAN powered its Koomak Drive and jumped to the Solar System, appearing near Venus’ orbit a fraction of a second later. Altering course towards the Sun, the heavy shuttle performed a close approach to the star and made a second jump at a precise moment, speed and distance, performing what was now known as a ‘Golshan Maneuver’. When they reemerged into normal Space, Merchant twisted his head to look at his three human passengers.

‘’We are now in the deep past, around the year 5,000 B.C.E. However, since we can’t verify the exact date we are in by, say, listening to public radio transmissions from Earth, today’s date is only approximate, give or take a few years. This was quite a large temporal jump, close to the maximum capability of our Koomak Drive.’’

‘’That’s alright, Mister Merchant.’ replied Eve with a smile. ‘’A few years more or less will not affect our mission. You may now fly to Earth and take a high-altitude station over the American Great Lakes. We will first watch the surface with our telescopes in order to locate where large buffalo herds are around Lake Superior, then will come down at night to let our riders out.’

Bernard Merchant simply nodded at that before starting to fly towards Earth, some 0.4

AU away. As their mission advisor, Eve was in actual command of what they would do while in the past, with Merchant and his crew only tasked with flying their heavy shuttle.

Other Spacers’ League crews would most probably have balked at giving in to the authority of an android but all the flight crews of the NOSTROMO accepted to take orders from androids if those same androids had been given command authority by Tina Forster. In that, it reflected the philosophy in force aboard the NOSTROMO and on New Haven that their androids were considered fully sentient beings of equal value to Humans and other sentient races, like the Koorivars and the Drazts.

An hour later, the FERRY MAN took a fixed position above the American Great Lakes region of North America, with its crew then starting to observe the said area via optical telescopes and thermal cameras. It didn’t take long before many buffalo herds, some of them counting thousands of beasts, were detected around the shores of the Great Lakes. Shania Bearhead, who was closely following the results of that search, soon pointed at a region on the southwest tip of Lake Superior.

‘’That herd, near the future location of Duluth, should be ideal for us as our first target. It numbers about 900 heads, while there are other large herds in the same

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region. We thus won’t risk significantly depleting the buffalo stocks in that region by capturing that herd. After all, we do not want to risk eliminating a prime source of food for the local inhabitants. Talking of inhabitants, are you able to detect any human presence near that herd, Mister Wang?’’

‘’There is actually a smal human settlement situated right on the shores of Lake Superior’s southwestern tip, Miss Bearheart. It counts about fifty to sixty inhabitants, if I can go by the count from our thermal cameras. Do you want to see a zoomed in view of it?’’

‘’Please do, Mister Wang. Make sure to record what we see: this wil be a priceless source of info on neolithic human settlement activity in this time period.’’

Shania, like Eve and Carla Lombardi, soon could look on their seats’ display screens at an overhead view of a small camp established on the shores of Lake Superior.

‘’Hum, this looks more like a transient camp than like a permanent settlement.’

said Shania. Those tents made of animal hides are rather rudimentary. Those natives are probably still living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, following the buffalo herds around.

We will have to be cautious not to show ourselves to them while we will operate on the ground. When I think that those people may well be my distant ancestors...’

‘’They possibly are, Shania.’’ said Eve, nodding her head. ‘’Since we appear to have arrived in the middle of the afternoon, in Spring or Fall time, we will have a few hours of daylight left to observe and record the activities of those natives. Mister Merchant, could we please launch a reconnaissance probe equipped with micro spy probes, so that we could better document this camp and its occupants’ activities?’

‘’We sure can, Miss Silisca. Minh, launch a Class-B probe and fly it to that camp.’

‘’Right away, Bernie!’’ replied the sensors officer of the FERRY MAN, who then worked up his controls before announcing that the probe had been launched and was on its way down to the surface. Another twenty minutes and the occupants of the bridge sphere were able to get much better, detailed pictures of the native camp. Shania Bearheart in particular was captivated at once by what they saw.

‘’This is great! We are looking live at Neolithic Age inhabitants of North America.

However, I mostly see women and children in the camp, with only a few, older men. The men of the camp must be out, hunting or gathering food. Do we have more thermal signatures away from this camp?’

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‘’Wait one... Yes, I can now detect a group of six individuals some seven kilometers to the west of the camp. I am going to send a spy probe towards that group.’’

Less than two minutes later, Shania was able to observe a group of six men dressed in deer skins and busy butchering a dead bison they had apparently killed with their spears. Shania nodded her head approvingly while observing that scene.

‘’That catch wil provide enough meat to feed the whole tribe for days. They will probably end up either smoking or drying the meat they will not eat right away. Eve, I notice that all their weapons and tools are made of wood and stone flints, which confirms the historical belief that those people apparently stil don’t know about metal. This will make a historical documentary of prime interest.’

‘’Indeed! Doctor Schmelling wil be elated to view these recordings.’

‘’However,’ added Shania, ‘’I must confess that what those natives are speaking has very little in common with the Ojibwe language. This is way too far back from our time.’’

‘’I kind of expected that, Shania. We wil try to learn as we go.’

The crew and passengers of the FERRY MAN kept observing the natives via spy probes for the next few hours, taking time to eat supper in relay, until darkness fell on the prairies around Lake Superior. Eve then looked at Bernard Merchant, who had just returned to his pilot’s seat.

‘’I believe that it is now safe for us to land close to the herd we have selected and to let out our cowboys.’

Merchant smiled at the term ‘cowboys’ which Eve used to describe the androids who would go out on horseback to corral the buffalo herd and drive them inside the main cargo hold of his heavy shuttle.

‘’On our way down, miss. Switching off all external lights now. Miss Bearheart, you are the expert on buffalo behavior. I will thus let you choose our landing point near the herd.’’

‘’Thank you, Mister Merchant. Go to that point south of the herd where two small woods form a kind of funnel on the prairies’ grasslands. That will help us direct those bison into our shuttle’s holds.’’

‘’Got it!’

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As the heavy shuttle was descending towards their planned landing site, Shania, Eve and Carla left their seats and exited the bridge sphere, going into the adjacent crew duty lounge, where the thirteen security androids completing the mission crew were waiting. The latter, led by Tribune Jehanne de Domrémy, assembled at once around the dining table of the lounge in order to listen to the instructions given by Shania.

‘’Alright, people, we are on our way down to the surface, where a landing spot was selected next to a narrow grassy passage between two patches of woods. We will use that ground feature to funnel a large herd of bison into the holds of our shuttle.

However, know that buffalo herds have a matriarchal organization. The main herd will contain only females and their young, with an old matriarch cow leading them. The bulls usually stay aside in small groups of male bison, until they get close to the females in order to couple. You will thus need to go corral those wandering bulls and lead them towards the herd before we push the whole lot towards our shuttle. It would be pretty dumb if we came back to New Haven with hundreds of beasts, all of the adults being female and with no bul s in the lot.’

‘’Yeah, we would pass as perfect idiots if we did that.’ replied a smiling Genghis Khan, who was acting as the second-in-command of the security androids, under Jehanne de Domrémy. Shania, like Carla, chuckled briefly at that before asking a question.

‘’It wil be dark when we will land. Can your horses safely gallop around in the night?’’

Jehanne shook her head at once in response.

‘’No! They would run a real risk of stumbling and possibly breaking their legs.

They are better used in daylight, when they can see where they go. For tonight, my team will move under our own power and use our internal gravity drives to fly around close to the ground. We can see in the dark thanks to our integrated thermal and low-level-light vision devices, so wil be easily able to locate those bul s and corral them.’

‘’And what will you use to corral those beasts, Jehanne? After all, we are talking about large animals which could weigh up to half a ton or more. They could simply ignore you and go their own way.’

‘’We will use our voices to mimic the rallying owls of wolves, Shania. That should be enough to scare them into galloping in the direction of our choice.’

‘’Your voices? I doubt that simple human voices imitating wolves will be strong enough to scare a bunch of big bulls.’

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‘’Aaah, but you need to remember that we are security androids, Shania: we can raise our voices to the decibel level of loudspeakers and can also imitate about any sound, scream or roaring we want.’

‘’Really? You...’

‘’WOOOOO!’’

The simultaneous wolf owls from all thirteen security androids, pushed to near ear-splitting volume, scared stiff both Shania and Carla, leaving them white as bed sheets and shaking in their seats. Jehanne de Domrémy then spoke in a normal voice, grinning.

‘’We could have imitated a charging T-Rex, or a giant tiger, among other predators. Believe me, those bulls will run in the direction we will decide.’’

‘’Uh, okay: I believe you, Jehanne. Jeesh! You really scared me shitless. Are there any other nifty tricks you guys can do?’’

‘’Plenty, but we are keeping them a secret for the time being.’ answered Jehanne, a big grin on her face.

02:41 (American Great Lakes Time)

May 15, 5004 B.C.E.

Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) camp, southern tip of Lake Superior Micizi had been on sentry duty for about three hours now, standing close to the central campfire of his tribal group but being careful to keep his back to it, in order to preserve his night vision. Only a careless or stupid man would stand sentry duty at night while facing a fire, something that would have earned him a severe remonstrance from Waawaate if caught doing so by the camp leader. However, Micizi was an experienced hunter and warrior and he kept vigilant, watching for possible packs of wolves, bears or, most dangerous of all, hunters from other tribes who would try to sneak in on the camp in order to steal things or to capture young women to make them their slaves. In truth, the tribes around the prairies rarely trusted each other and, more often than not, competed for the precious resources of the land. Thankfully, it was not raining tonight and the wind was merely fresh, so Micizi’s tour of duty was a fairly comfortable one.

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Micizi had just thrown some more wood on the campfire set in the center of the camp, being careful to close one eye while facing it, when a series of distant owls made him stiffen in alarm: those owls were from wolves, many of them. Tightening his grip on his flint-tipped spear, he did his best to find out from which direction those owls were coming and to estimate the distance these wolves were from the camp. He quickly established that the owls were coming from west of the camp and that they were from at least one hour’s walk away. Then, Micizi started hearing the faint rumble from what sounded like a large group of bison running, probably to get away from those wolves.

From the distance he had judged, he didn’t think that the camp was in imminent danger but he still continued to listen carefully, as a herd of buffalos could change direction quickly and then advance rapidly, especially when they were panicking. Then, the sound of running bison increased dramatically, not in terms of closeness but in terms of numbers: there were now hundreds of bison on the move. That was when Micizi decided to go wake up Waawaate, the tribe leader. Entering his hut made of deer skins laid over an armature of large branches, he gently shook Waawaate by touching his left shoulder while speaking in a low volume of voice.

‘’Waawaate! Waawaate! Wake up!’

The 36-year-old tribal chieftain did wake up after two shakes and looked up at Micizi, who was kneeling next to the buffalo skin he was sleeping on.

‘’Uh, what’s up, Micizi?’

‘’I can hear many wolves in the distance, to the West. I can also hear a herd of bison running, probably to escape those wolves. They are quite a long distance away but they could quickly change direction and run towards our camp.’’

‘’Very well, I wil go out and listen with you.’

The two Ojibwes then left the hut and stopped, in order to better listen.

Waawaate quickly nodded his head after listening for a few seconds.

‘’You are right, Micizi: a pack of wolves is after the big herd we spotted this morning. While I don’t think that our camp is in immediate danger, it may be wise for us to send a large group of our men in that direction in the morning. With luck, we could find one or more dead bison, killed by those wolves and in the process of being eaten.

That could provide us with a good quantity of meat for our tribe. In the meantime, I will go wake up Myeengun and Ogichidaa, so that they could reinforce our guard over our camp during the rest of the night. You did well, Micizi.’

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‘’Thank you, Waawaate!’’ said the sentry, proud of the compliment from his leader, before resuming his sentry duty. Minutes later, Myeengun and Ogichidaa joined him near the campfire, armed with their spears. Micizi took a minute to explain to them what was going on, making them listen carefully to the distant noises. Ogichidaa, the oldest hunter of the trio, nodded his head after a few seconds of listening.

‘’That is indeed a large group of bison on the move, with at least ten wolves after them. With their present number, those wolves should be able to corner and kill at least one bison. We could indeed find some fresh carcass in the morning. At the least, we would find a pelt, something always useful.’

‘’Yeah, if the wolves won’t bite it full of holes.’’ added Myeengun, attracting a reprobative look from Ogichidaa.

‘’You are such a pessimist, Myeengun. You should learn to worry less and to enjoy this life as much as you can...while you can.’’

The owls and the noises from hooves running died down in the next hour or so, without coming closer to the camp, something that reassured Micizi. As the morning twilight came and started bringing in some illumination, Micizi suddenly saw something, low in the sky, and quickly pointed it to his two companions.

‘’THERE, IN THE SKY, SOMETHING IS RISING FROM THE GROUND, IN THE

DIRECTION FROM WHICH WE HEARD THE WOLVES AND THE BISONS.’

‘’What...what is that?’’ stuttered Myeengun. ‘’It looks as big as a mountain and is climbing very fast in the sky. How could this be?’’

Before the three Ojibwe men could further react to it, the unknown flying object soon disappeared in the early morning sky after climbing out of view. Ogichidaa resumed the thoughts of all three then.

‘’It must have been a manifestation of the Great Spirit. Maybe it was telling us to go look to that spot. I will go inform Waawaate of this.’

Waawaate apparently agreed with Ogichidaa’s opinion and a strong party of fourteen hunters armed with spears and stone knives soon departed the camp, leaving another ten men to guard it, then started at a quick trot towards the West. Being all in excellent physical shape, the group made good time across the grassy plain intersped with patches of woods, to finally arrive at a grassy patch flanked by two close-by forests.

The expert eyes of the Ojibwe hunters quickly found evidence of the passage of a large

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herd of bison heading south in the direction of the grassy passage between the woods.

To their joy, they also found an adult female bison who had apparently broken a leg by stepping into a hole in the dark of the night. That bison was still very much alive but was unable to flee the hunters, who quickly killed it with their spears, thus securing hundreds of kilos of fresh meat and an intact pelt. The group was butchering the dead animal when Micizi, who had gone further to see if there were more beasts around and available for the taking, called his leader to him, apparently shaken by something.

Waawaate was about to ask him what was going on when he saw what Micizi had seen and opened his eyes wide.

‘’By the Great Spirit! What could make such a large and deep imprint on the ground?’’

‘’There are actual y many more such imprints on the ground, forming a sort of huge circle. Also, the footprints from this herd all disappear suddenly over there, as if they had all suddenly vanished into thin air.’

Walking around while looking at the ground, Waawaate soon had to agree with Micizi.

Overwhelmed by what he was seeing and not able to understand what it meant, the tribal chief then did the only thing he could do now: to accept the things as they were and to take best advantage of their situation.

‘’This must all be the work of the Great Spirit. Let us thank him for leading us to this spot and find that wounded bison. Come, Micizi: let’s help our companions to butcher that bison. We will be able to celebrate this tonight at the camp with a feast of meat.’

16:13 (Universal Time)

Monday, May 22, 2339

Southern section of the Appalachian Plains

Near Lake Mistassini, on New Haven (Wolf 1061ca) Wolf 1061 System, 13.8 light-years from Earth

Tina was nearly jubilant as she watched from her aircar nearly 900 American bison trot out of the cargo holds of the FERRY MAN and step on the grasslands of the Appalachian Plains, near the South Pole of New Haven. Her project to build up large herds of herbivores in order to provide a reserve of meat for future Humanity’s needs

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was definitely having a good start. She then smiled at the image of Shania Bearheart and Eve Silisca visible on the display screen of her aircar’s dash.

‘’Well done, ladies! Operation Noah’s Ark is up to a very good start. How were the conditions in the Fifth Millenium B.C.E.? Did you see neolithic natives around the Great Lakes?’’

‘’Oh, we did observe a few of them and filmed one of their camps, Tina.’

answered Shania. ‘’Doctor Schmeling should love the video recordings we took of those natives. However, I was able to ascertain that the language they spoke had little common with the Ojibwe language I know: the temporal separation was just too great.’

‘’It was to be expected, Shania. When are you planning to return for your second pickup of bison?’’

‘’We wil leave again for Past Earth as soon as our maintenance robots will have thoroughly cleaned and disinfected our cargo holds, Tina. You wouldn’t believe the amount of feces and urine a herd of bison can produce, especially when they are nervous and all excited. I believe that we will need at least six more return trips in order to bring enough bison to New Haven to provide for a viable, sustained population of bison able to multiply quickly. However, I believe that we will need to vary the time and regions in which we will do these culling, in order not to deplete the bison population in any given time period. We will thus travel to 6000 B.C.E. for our next trip, which will target the grasslands around Lake Winnipeg, in the Canadian Prairies.’’

‘’Sounds like a plan. Again, great job, girls. Pass as well my congratulations to Jehanne and her team of android cowboys.’

‘’We wil , Tina. They had a lot of fun playing cowboys, if androids could indeed have fun.’

‘’Never underestimate the capacity of our security androids to learn and evolve by themselves, Shania.’’ replied Tina, becoming serious. ‘’They could surprise you in many ways. Well, I wil now leave you to your housecleaning work.’

Tina then terminated the connection and looked down at the hundreds of bison now dispersing around the vast prairies of the Appalachian Plains. Many of them had already started to graze the grass, while others were heading towards the nearby shore of Lake Mistassini in order to drink some water. With a surface of approximately 4,500 square kilometers and a maximum depth of 120 meters, Lake Mistassini could more properly be called a small inland sea but its waters were not salty and it wasn’t even the largest lake on New Haven, with nearby Lake Huron winning the palm in that aspect with its 9,000

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square kilometers of potable water. With the 33.8 million square kilometers of grasslands and forests of the Appalachian Plains, which extended north-south between the two poles of New Haven, those bison were not about to lack plants to graze.

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CHAPTER 8 – A SIBLING FOR FRIDA

08:26 (Canadian Prairies Time)

February 04, 11,052 B.C.E.

Bridge sphere of the heavy cargo shuttle FERRY MAN

Overflying the grass plains near the future site of Prince Albert Future Canadian province of Saskatchewan, North America

‘’Well, I can’t say on what exact date we presently are but this certainly looks like Winter to me, and a cold one.’’

Shania nodded her head at that remark from Bernard Merchant, the pilot of the FERRY

MAN.

‘’It does, Bernard. What is the external temperature?’

‘’Oh, a balmy minus 27 degrees Celsius. There is also a strong south-easterly wind that probably cools the temperature much further. Not exactly my favorite kind of weather.’

Eve Silisca was about to speak when the shuttle’s copilot, Lana del Rio, suddenly spoke up.

‘’I see a column of smoke rising from the ground at two o’ clock! It looks like a small, localized fire. We should go investigate it.’

‘’Agreed! However, let’s stay at high altitude, in order to be out of sight of any native local. We will use our optical telescope to assess that fire.’

Merchant then veered his large shuttle towards the column of smoke, while his sensors operator, Wang Van Minh, switched his main viewing screen to their main optical telescope, a powerful instrument with an aperture of eighty centimeters. It didn’t take long before Wang spoke up, some tension in his voice.

‘’I see the remains of a sort of tent which burned down. I also see a man and a woman near the remains of that tent: they are surrounded by a pack of five wolves. The man is trying to fight the wolves off but the woman appears to be inert and is possibly dead.’

‘’By the stars! Miss Silisca, I request permission to go rescue that couple.’

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‘’Go ahead! I wil alert our android squad to be ready to jump out.’ replied Eve who, as the mission advisor, had the authority to authorize this. She then switched on her intercom system. ‘’Attention, security squad: we have a pair of natives being attacked by wolves. Prepare to jump down to the surface in order to rescue them.

Frida, bring your first aid kit with you, along with warm blankets. More instructions will follow soon.’’

As the FERRY MAN quickly accelerated towards the column of smoke, Eve, Shania and Carla anxiously watched the scene viewed by their telescope. The native woman was still inert on the ground, partially wrapped in a bison fur, but would have been bitten and ripped apart by the wolves if not for the desperate fight put up by the man, who was probably her husband. Then, one of the wolves succeeded in biting the man’s left calf, making him scream with pain. The latter, now bleeding heavily, managed to skewer the beast with his primitive spear but was then bitten by another wolf, which closed its jaws on its upper right leg. The man fell on his back, unable to stay standing, and was immediately set upon by the whole pack of wolves, making Carla Lombardi shout in horror.

‘’WE MUST DO SOMETHING NOW! DON’T WE HAVE WEAPONS ON THIS

SHUTTLE?’’

‘’We have only a couple of low-power laser turrets, Carla.’ replied Merchant before looking at Wang. ‘’Minh, target one of those wolves with our forward laser turret.

Be careful not to hit that native.’’

‘’On it! Firing now!’

A thin blue-green laser beam flashed for half a second from the belly of the cargo shuttle, missing a wolf by mere centimeters. However that wolf, despite not being hit, did jump away in surprise. The second laser burst from Wang then burned through his torso, making the predator fall down, dead. Wang kept firing more laser beams in quick succession and succeeded in downing three more beasts before the last surviving wolf abandoned his prey and fled. By then, the shuttle was nearly at the vertical of the burned-out tent and losing altitude fast.

‘’Jehanne, be ready to jump out once I will come to a hover at an altitude of 200

meters. We should be there in ten seconds.’’

‘’We are ready, Mister Merchant.’ answered Jehanne via the intercom box situated in the aft personnel airlock. A few seconds later, Merchant spoke again.

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‘’We are now stationary at 200 meters above the ground. Jump now!’

Inside the aft personnel airlock, which had its outer door already opened, Jehanne de Domrémy ran out and started free-falling, closely followed by twelve more androids, including the team’s paramedic, Greta Norstrom. Jehanne did not activate the directed gravity drive integrated inside her android body until she was only fifty meters from the ground. She absorbed the remaining energy of her fall by bending her knees, then ran towards the native man and woman, her disintegrator rifle at the ready. Her first move once near the couple was to bend over in order to examine the man, while her squad members fanned out in a protective circle around her and the natives. Unfortunately, she found that the man was already dead, having lost most of his blood due to his wounds. Greta Norstrom, on her part, checked out the woman, who was as white as a sheet.

‘’The woman is dead, Jehanne. She probably froze to death. Wait! There is something under her.’

Greta then turned the dead woman on her back, uncovering something wrapped in a wolf skin. A small wail then came out from inside that rolled fur.

‘’THERE’S A BABY INSIDE THAT FUR! IT IS ALIVE!’

Partly opening the rolled piece of fur, Greta saw the face of a crying young child of less than one year of age.

‘’We have a very young toddler, Jehanne. I am going to fly back to the shuttle in order to examine him in our infirmary.’

‘’Go! We wil take care of burying those two unfortunate people.’’

As Greta flew off with her precious bundle, Jehanne examined quickly the dead woman.

She didn’t bear any bite marks or wounds, so must have frozen to death before the attack by the wolves. She was lightly dressed for the freezing weather and wore only a rather thin deer skin, while her feet were naked. Jehanne concluded that she and her male companion must have been caught by surprise when their tent started burning, with the woman having only barely enough time to flee the tent with her child wrapped in a fur. Jehanne then noticed a primitive necklace worn by the dead woman, who could have been around the age of twenty. That necklace was made of a string of animal claws suspended to a leather string. The woman wore no other piece of ‘jewelry’.

Jehanne reasoned that, as the only personal possession carried by that woman, it probably had a sentimental value for her. She respectfully removed the necklace from around the dead woman’s neck and put it in her left leg cargo pocket: that was the only

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souvenir of her mother that her poor baby would be able to keep once grown up. She then inspected the dead man, who could not be more than thirty years-old. He too was wearing a necklace made of claws and leather string, but one much more elaborate than the one of his companion, so she also removed and pocketed that necklace, plus took the primitive flint blade he had carried at his belt. Getting back on her feet, Jehanne embraced the scene of the drama and the burned remains of the tent. Something didn’t feel right to her about this, so she contacted Shania Bearheart via radio.

‘’Shania, this is Jehanne. Why would a solitary couple with a baby be camping alone like this in Winter? I thought that native North Americans of this time would stay in groups of at least two or three families, to benefit from group protection.’

‘’You are right, Jehanne: this is not normal, especially in Winter. Unfortunately, I see only one plausible reason for that couple to be camping by themselves in the deep of Winter: they must have been expelled and ostracized by their tribal band.’’

‘’And why would a band expel them like that, Shania? Throwing them out in the middle of Winter was a near-certain death sentence.’’

There was a pause of a few seconds then, as Shania apparently thought that over, before she replied to Jehanne.

‘’The most plausible reason for incurring such a punishment would be that this couple married against the consent of their tribal leader. Maybe they hid their union until the pregnancy of this woman gave away their secret. In native tribes like mine, going against the authority of the tribal leader is considered a very serious fault and is often punished by banishment from the tribe.’

Looking down at the dead woman, then at her dead companion, Jehanne had the equivalent for an android of a pang of regret and sadness. In this case, the love between that man and woman had ultimately caused their deaths.

‘’Alright! Greta is on her way to our infirmary with the couple’s child. My squad will now bury the parents, so that wolves and other predators could not get at their bodies. Tell Mister Merchant that we should be back aboard his cargo shuttle in less than half an hour.’

‘’Understood!’’

Jehanne then cut her transmission and, taking a few steps away from the two bodies, pointed her disintegrator rifle at the frozen, snow-covered ground. Less than twenty seconds of work was enough to dig a deep oval hole big enough for the man and woman: burying together the young couple sounded like the proper thing to do for

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Jehanne. Her squad members then moved the two bodies to the still-fuming hole and respectfully laid them side by side in the bottom of the grave. Their next move was to disperse in order to collect some of the rocks strewn around the plain, while Jehanne collected the largest debris from the burned tent. The partially burned bison hides which had formed the tent’s outer layer were laid on top of the two bodies and then covered with a pile of rocks. Once their work was completed, Jehanne called her squad members to attention.

‘’SQUAD, ATTEN...TION! PRESENT...ARMS!’

Jehanne then saluted the grave for a few second before ordering her androids to shoulder their rifles and to fly back to the cargo shuttle.

Once back aboard the FERRY MAN, Jehanne’s first move was to go to the ship’s infirmary, situated next to the crew lounge and bridge sphere. There, she found Greta Norstrom examining the small child while Eve, Shania and Carla looked on.

‘’How is the child doing, Greta?’

‘’The boy seems to be alright, except maybe for suffering from mild exposure.

He otherwise looks healthy and appears to be a bit less than one year of age.’

Approaching the examination table, Jehanne looked down at the child with apparent sadness.

‘’Poor thing: orphaned at such a young age. I did recuperate two necklaces which his parents were wearing, along with a flint knife I found on the dead man. I will safeguard them so that this boy could keep them in the future.’’

‘’And what wil we do with the boy?’’ asked Carla Lombardi. ‘’Couldn’t we give it back to his tribe?’’

‘’No!’’ answered at once Shania. ‘’His parents were most probably ostracized and expelled because of their forbidden love, of which this baby is the product. I doubt very much that their tribe will accept to take that child.’’

‘’Can’t we at least try?’’ protested Carla, becoming emotional. Shania thought for a moment before answering her.

‘’We could try, but I am nearly certain that they wil refuse to take the boy. They may even kill that child when they will understand who his parents were. Are you ready to risk that to happen, Carla?’’

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The assistant-veterinarian shook her head in response, as tears came to her eyes. Her voice choking up, she turned around and exited the infirmary at a near run. As a regretful Shania watched Carla leave, Jehanne then spoke softly.

‘’I wil take care of this boy, Shania. I already am raising an orphan girl who is now nine years-old. My Frida would love to greet a new sibling in our family.’

‘’Do you have a name you would like to propose for that boy, Jehanne?’’ asked Eve Silisca. That made Jehanne look at Shania.

‘’Give me a few native names which would be appropriate for this boy, Shania.’’

The zoologist-veterinarian thought her answer over for a few seconds while looking at the baby, then spoke up.

‘’How about ‘Nehiyawak’? That is the name the Cree people use to call themselves.’’

‘’Nehiyawak... That sounds nice to me...and appropriate for the present case.

Eve, could you officially register this boy’s name as ‘Nehiyawak’ and also put me down as his tutor?’’

‘’I will be most happy to do that, Jehanne. Greta, could you prepare some condensed milk mixture to feed Nehiyawak during his stay aboard? I doubt that we have baby milk solution on the FERRY MAN.’’

‘’Don’t say that too quickly, Eve. I believe that we have some emergency baby supplies in our reserves. I will go check on that right away.’

‘’Then I wil hold him while you are looking for those supplies.’’ said Jehanne before gently taking the little boy in her arms and then rocking him while humming a soft tune. Shania was stunned to see how natural at this Jehanne appeared to be...for an android.

The crew of the FERRY MAN soon returned to its planned mission: to find and collect a herd of bison. They soon enough found such a herd, counting some 460

heads. They also found something else nearby, something completely unexpected.

‘’Uh, I see what looks like elephants in the distance, Bernard.’ said a surprised Wang, making Merchant’s head snap around in surprise.

‘’Elephants? In Northern Canada? That’s impossible!’’

Shania, who looked at the view shown by their optical telescope, became at once excited.

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‘’WOOLLY MAMMOTHS! WE HAVE A HERD OF WOOLLY MAMMOTHS, HERE AND NOW. I THOUGHT THAT THEY

WOULD BE EXTINCT BY NOW. THIS IS A

FANTASTIC FIND.’’

‘’Uh, we came here to catch bison.’ said

Merchant in a hesitant voice. ‘’Should we real y care about those mammoths?’’

Shania gave him an indignant stare on hearing that.

‘’If we should care about mammoths? Of course we should! That species died out on Earth some 12,000 years before our time. To be able to return to New Haven with a herd of mammoths would be simply fantastic. I am sure that Tina would be elated to see us arrive with mammoths aboard.’

Merchant then looked at Eve, who was technically his mission commander. In response, Eve nodded her head once, looking most serious.

‘’We wil grab all the mammoths we can, Mister Merchant. Then we wil grab as well as many bison as our holds will be able to contain. Our cowboy squad will be a busy bunch today and tomorrow.’

13:48 (Universal Time)

Tuesday, May 30, 2339

H.S.S. FERRY MAN, western shores of Ross Lake

North Pole of New Haven (Wolf 1061 ca)

Wolf 161 System, 13.8 light-years from Earth

Eve, Shania and Jehanne were sitting together, facing the same display screen in the duty crew lounge of the FERRY MAN, when they connected with Tina Forster, who was aboard the orbiting NOSTROMO. Tina smiled on seeing the trio at her end of the electronic link.

‘’So, how did your last mission go, girls? Found more bison?’’

‘’We did find and catch another 812 bison in 11,052 B.C.E., Tina. We just released them one hour ago in the northern portion of the Katanga Plain, near Lake Aztlan. We are now on the ground next to the western shores of Ross Lake, at the North Pole.’’

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‘’The North Pole? Why did you land there?’

‘’We did so in order to drop off more animals who are accustomed to cold climates.’ answered Eve. ‘’I am now going to add a view from our main cargo ramp, for your benefit. Be ready for quite a surprise.’

Eve then clicked on a button, making a view of the extended cargo ramp appear next to their own image on the screen. Utter surprise and disbelief immediately appeared on Tina’s face when she was able to see dozens of wool y mammoths trotting down the ramp and setting foot on the tundra grasslands of the North Pole.

‘’Wool y mammoths? But I thought that they disappeared from Earth a good 20,000 years ago.’’

‘’We thought so as well, Tina, but they apparently continued on for longer, at least in the Canadian Prairies. We were able to capture a total of 56 beasts, including seven bul s, 37 females and twelve calves. I know that this was not part of our mission’s objectives but we simply could not resist grabbing this incredible opportunity to revive a long-extinct species.’’

‘’And you did well about that, Eve. Gee! This could become a major touristic attraction for New Haven. Did you see other unexpected, interesting species on that trip?’

‘’No, but we witnessed a human tragedy on the shores of the Saskatchewan River.’

Eve then took a minute to tell Tina about the dead native couple and their baby. At the end of that, Jehanne picked up a small basket she had put on the deck next to the video station and presented it to the camera, allowing Tina to see the baby boy sleeping in it.

‘’I have decided to adopt him and called him ‘Nehiyawak’, which means ‘Cree People’ in the Cree language. You can now register a new citizen for New Haven and the NOSTROMO. I am now asking for maternal leave, in order to fully care for him.’

Tina’s expression softened up on seeing the sleeping boy, wrapped in a blanket.

‘’Jehanne, I must congratulate you on your compassion and sense of humanity.

Consider yourself on paid maternity leave for as long as you will need to care for your new little treasure. Shaka Zulu will replace you as legion commander during your leave.

Again, well done, all of you! I thus announce this mission to be over for the time being.

However, you may expect more herd collecting in the next few weeks, after we see how our new bestiary adapts to New Haven. Jehanne, I will want to kiss your baby boy the moment you get back on the NOSTROMO.’

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‘’And you wil be welcome to him, Tina.’ replied a proud Jehanne.

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CHAPTER 9 – A PEACEFUL WORLD

09:46 (Universal Time)

Saturday, June 10, 2339

Dome house at 42 Farmer’s Lane, settlement of New Haven Northern Appalachian Plains, New Haven (Wolf 1061ca) Wolf 1061 System, 13.8 light-years from Earth

‘’Here you are: your new home at Number 42, Farmers’ Lane. If you were looking for a quiet place to live as a family, you just found it. Your neighbors are all ex-refugees from Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans who came here to escape wars, natural disasters, droughts or famines. They are also mostly ex-farmers who now work in our hydroponic gardens, in animal husbandry or in our artistic shops.’’

‘’That is good, Madam Wei.’ replied Pieter Nordlung while looking at the dome house which was now his temporary family’s home for the next few months. ‘’While we will miss the NOSTROMO and its fantastic facilities, we certainly could enjoy some quiet, peaceful time on New Haven.’

‘’Talking of quiet and peaceful, how is the social environment on New Haven, Misses Wei? I am thinking in particular about the level of crime, if any, around.’’

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Wei Zang, an ethnic Chinese woman with gray hair, nodded to Jehanne de Domrémy, who was carrying a tiny child in her arms, while a very cute little blond girl held the hand of Pieter Nordlung.

‘’Pretending that there is no crime here on New Haven would be a lie, but the local criminality level is extremely low and is limited mostly to petty theft and family disputes, something present in all Human societies around the Spacers’ League. As you must well know, Tribune de Domrémy, a force of 900 security androids is posted on New Haven and is regularly rotated around with the androids based on the NOSTROMO.

That force acts mostly as our local public safety and police force, now that the threat from the Space Predators has faded away. I understand that you are yourself on maternity leave and are off security duties for at least the next six months.’

‘’That is correct, Misses Wei. However, if a security emergency shows up, I will be ready to lend a hand.’

‘’And what about you, Mister Nordlung? Aren’t you stil an active-duty Space fighter pilot?’’

‘’Yes, I am! However, I was just transferred from the First Fighter Squadron, based on the NOSTROMO, to the New Haven Defense Squadron, based in nearby Camelot Spaceport. In fact, I wil be commanding it.’

Wei Zang briefly glanced at the medal and campaign ribbons visible on the left chest of the athletic and most handsome blond man in his late thirties.

‘’And having you in charge of our Space fighter squadron wil be nice to know for us, Mister Nordlung: you gained an enviable reputation during the war against the Space Predators. Your little girl, is she from a previous marriage, if I may ask?’’

‘’No! Me and Jehanne adopted Frida, who is now seven, after she lost her mother during the invasion of Nordland by the Space Predators. Jehanne personally saved her during that fighting, then decided to adopt Frida.’’

‘’And this cute little boy in your wife’s arms? I can’t precisely define his ethnic type but he definitely doesn’t have a Nordic type.’

‘’Nehiyawak is of American Native Cree blood, Misses Wei.’ answered Jehanne.

‘’He is also an orphan and was saved by me from the plains of North America, some 13,000 years ago in the past, after his parents died from either cold or from attacks by wolves. In her last living moments, before she succumbed to exposure, his mother protected him by lying over him in a last effort to keep him warm.’

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That left Zang silent for a moment from the emotions Jehanne’s revelations created in her as she stared at the little child, who sported slanted eyes and a brown skin.

‘’By the stars! Such a tragic story, but also one of great compassion. This may sound a bit cheesy, Tribune de Domrémy, but you strike me as a most human person.’

‘’She is indeed a most human person, Madam Wei.’ then said Pieter Nordlung.

‘’She may be a security android, but Jehanne has developed quite a range of human-like emotions and personality traits since she was built and activated, eleven years ago.’

‘’I see! You certainly look like a nice little family. Let me show you your new house.’

Leading the two adults and two children along the stone-paved trail leading to the dome house, which had a diameter of roughly thirteen meters and a maximum height of nine meters, Zang applied her right hand to the recognition pad fixed next to the main entrance door, which was connected to the ground level around it by a long curved ramp. Her imprint as the Human Resources and Immigration Administrator for the moon of New Haven unlocked at once the door. However, before entering the house, she invited Peter, Jehanne and little Frida to also apply in turn their right hand to the identity recognition pad, in order to have them registered as the legal occupants of the house.

Once that was done, she made the small family enter an entrance lobby, where they were able to drop the two suitcases and two backpacks the adults were carrying. Zang then swept her hand around, showing them the large, high-ceiling area next to the entrance.

‘’This is the combined family lounge and dining area of the house, with the kitchen occupying the far left corner of it. It covers a total surface area of 39 square meters and has a high ceiling with a maximum height of six meters. Next to the kitchen corner and to the dining area is an open-air patio and balcony with wide patio sliding glass doors. On the patio, you will find a BBQ grill and an assortment of outdoor chairs and a table, where you will be able to cook and enjoy meals in fresh air. The balcony also comes with an emergency exit ladder, in case a fire starts in the house. However, your house, like the other buildings on New Haven, comes equipped with water sprinkler systems and smoke and fire detection systems connected to the local public safety office of this settlement. You will also find a fire safety exit slide on the top floor, which would allow you to evacuate the house in seconds if need be. Many of the local kids also use that exit slide to play by zipping down to the grass yard surrounding their houses.’

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That last sentence, told while smiling to little Frida, made the little girl open her eyes wide with anticipated pleasure. Zang then made the family tour the main floor of the dome house, showing them in turn a combination laundry room and bathroom, in which an android diagnostic and maintenance unit had been installed for Jehanne’s convenience, a private study office, a secondary bedroom with a double bunk bed and a main bedroom with private bathroom. Peter nodded in approbation at the very respectable size of the bed in that last bedroom.

‘’Nice! Al this looks very comfortable.’’

‘’For all the ex-refugees now living on New Haven, this constituted nearly unimaginable luxury compared to their previous, precarious living conditions. However, this simply reflects the main goal of the creation of this moon’s society: to provide at last a decent living environment to people who suffered a lot through no fault of their own.

Since the penalty for committing serious, violent crimes on New Haven is typically expulsion and forced repatriation to Earth, that ensures that the level of criminality and violence stays very low. We had to forcibly repatriate a few hundreds of people in the first few years, people who persisted in trying to perpetuate the ethnic and religious conflicts which had put them and their families into refugee camps. Now, we have full-time social counselors who help mediate family and neighborhood disputes. Our public security force only intervenes when someone refuses to obey reason. If that happens, only the person at fault could be expulsed from New Haven, while his or her family will be allowed to stay. We institute that rule to prevent abusive people from forcing others to follow them against their will when they are repatriated to Earth.’’

‘’A good, common sense and humane rule to take care of what is unfortunately stil too common a problem with Humanity.’ said Pieter. ‘’Some people wil simply never learn, or wil refuse to learn to respect others.’

‘’Indeed! Let’s go up to the upper floor now.’

Using a wide spiral staircase situated next to the dining area, the group went up to the upper floor, which had a maximum internal diameter of seven meters. There, Zang showed in succession to the family two secondary bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, a double bunk bed and a study corner. However, the room that truly fired up little Frida was the large playroom, which had a small trampoline in one corner and a shelving unit fil ed with various toys and children’s books. Running to the trampoline, which was surrounded by thick foam mattresses, Frida started at once to jump up and

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down on it while squealing with joy. The adults watched her for a moment while smiling before Zang approached a sort of door leading to the outside. Unlocking and opening that door, she showed to Jehanne and Peter a long, curved stainless steel slide going down all the way to the level of the grass lawn, some eight meters below.

‘’This is the fire exit slide for the occupants of this floor. It can be unlocked only from the inside, so don’t worry about thieves using it to gain access to the house. Also, this slide has a thin layer of Teflon covering its top surface, so thieves would find it next to impossible to climb it. On the other hand, sliding down it will be quite fast. Would you want to try it, Frida?’

‘’YES!’ was the girl’s immediate response. Jumping off the trampoline, she ran to the emergency exit door and sat on the slide, to then slide down with an impressive acceleration rate.

‘’WEEE!’

Frida landed on the grass of the lawn, where her speed made her tumble once before she got back on her feet and shouted at her parents.

‘’YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS! IT’S FUN!’

‘’Alright, let’s go down.’’ Said Peter before sliding down, closely followed by Jehanne, who was still holding little Nehiyawak. On her part, Zang stayed on the upper floor and shouted down at the little family.

‘’I will lock back this emergency exit door, then wil come down via the central staircase. Please join me back in the dining room.’

Once back together as a group, Zang opened the refrigerator of the kitchen and its pantry, showing their well-stocked tablets.

‘’Your pantry and refrigerator were stocked up with fresh products yesterday.

There is also a small convenience and grocery store at the end of your street, where you will be able to replenish your stocks of fresh food items. All the food items to be found on New Haven are produced locally, either in hydroponic gardens or from free-roaming heads of cattle, while poultries come from small family coops or farms. Fish and sea products are also from New Haven and are from Earth stocks seeded years ago in the lakes of New Haven. Don’t worry if you are not practiced cooks yourselves: our convenience stores also stock a wide variety of prepared dishes made by local citizens who work in our communal food kitchens. I will just ask you not to waste food by grabbing excessive amounts of food items when visiting our convenience stores and

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open-air food markets. We may produce a lot of food on New Haven but wasting good food is looked at poorly in our community, something most understandable when you consider that many of our citizens suffered from famines on Earth before emigrating to New Haven.’

‘’That is indeed a most understandable attitude, Madam Wei.’ said Peter. Zang then approached the large flat screen of the video entertainment unit sitting in a corner of the family lounge and switched it on, then selected a specific program from the video menu.

‘’This is our standard welcome documentary used to tell our new citizens about the activities, services and infrastructures available on New Haven. I will encourage you to watch it before starting to plan your future activities. I will now let you free to enjoy your new house and unpack your things. If you have any questions or encounter problems of any kind, simply contact the nearest local public service office to get answers or help. On this, have a nice stay on New Haven.’

Zang shook hands with Peter, Jehanne and Frida, then kissed little Nehiyawak on his forehead before departing, leaving the small family alone in their new lounge. Peter then pointed at the video unit, then at the large sofa facing it.

‘’Well, let’s watch that welcoming documentary, so that we could learn about our new home world.’

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CHAPTER 10 – A SMALL GLITCH

07:48 (Universal Time)

Friday, November 17, 2339

Heavy craft hangar # 3, Heavy Craft Hangar Deck A.M.S. NOSTROMO, in Earth orbit

The pilot of the command cutter AEGIS, security android Harrison Ford, was surprised when he saw Tina Forster enter the bridge sphere of his command cutter in the company of Eve Silisca and then take one of the observers’ seats.

‘’Captain? I was not expecting you on this mission to the past.’

Tina replied to that with a big smile.

‘’Well, since Jehanne de Domrémy is stil on maternity leave on New Haven, I decided to fil the void in the Tempus Team with myself. Besides, I love ‘whodunnit’

stories and what better one than the historical speculations still running about who assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963? The NOSTROMO is anyway due to stay in Earth orbit for another week at the least, while waiting for the modular structures destined for Asiana to be delivered to orbit. That will leave us ample time to complete this mission to the 20th Century and return to the NOSTROMO.’’

‘’And Professor Schmeling?’’

‘’He is already aboard. He went to unpack his bags in his assigned cabin. As well, I had extra reserves of fresh rations brought in from our central kitchens: unlike you and the rest of the crew, me and Samuel don’t consume electricity and lubricant oil.’

Harrison smiled briefly at that joke and nodded his head once.

‘’Then, strap yourself in, Captain: we are about to fly out.’

Tina did so, then watched as the bridge crew of the command cutter activated the main systems of the AEGIS and performed a pre-flight instruments check. The sixty-meter-long command cutter then flew out of the NOSTROMO after another nine minutes, to then head towards the Sun in order to effect its temporal jump towards the past. By now, the mechanics of such temporal jumps, at least when using the Sun as a jumping point, were well understood and Tina was still quite relaxed by the time the

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AEGIS started its acceleration run into a tangent that would pass very close to the Sun.

However, something unexpected happened just as Harrison Ford was seconds from activating their Koomak Drive generator and effect a so-called Golshan Maneuver: a huge arc of hot plasma was suddenly ejected from the surface of the Sun, heading directly towards the approaching command cutter.

‘’WE HAVE AN INCOMING SOLAR ERUPTION FLARE! HANG ON!’ shouted Harrison for Tina’s benefit. Just as the huge hurricane of hot plasma was striking the AEGIS, making it shake violently, the Koomak Drive generator activated, briefly permeating the command cutter into a flash of light. Then, normal Space reappeared on the viewing screens of the bridge sphere. A worried Tina then asked a question in an anxious tone.

‘’Are we stil in the Solar System?’’

‘’We are, Captain.’’ answered within seconds Christian Bale, the navigator of the AEGIS. ‘’I can see Earth on our port side, some 0.7 AU away. Whatever were the effects of that solar eruption, it did not affect our spatial jump.’’

‘’What about our temporal jump?’’

‘’We wil have to wait until we are in Earth orbit before we could ascertain our exact time and date of arrival, Captain.’’

‘’Whenever we are, Captain, this is the mid-20th Century.’ added Al ison Stokke, their sensors officer. ‘’The low level of electronic traffic emanating into Space around the Earth is consistent with that of the very early Space exploration age or slightly before it.’

‘’Very well, then. Mister Ford, fly us to Earth and adopt a low polar orbit once there.’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

While a bit anxious now, Tina was not really worried, as they could always make another temporal jump to get to the precise date they had been targeting for their mission, which was November 21 of the year 1963. She thus spoke in a calm voice when Samuel Schmeling finally joined her in the bridge sphere.

‘’We are now approaching Earth, Samuel. We were hit by a sudden Solar eruption just as we were going to make our jump. We should soon know what precise time and date we are in now. We believe however that we are indeed in the 20th Century.’

‘’Good! That sudden shaking did unsettle me a bit.’

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Schmeling took the vacant observer’s seat next to Tina and buckled his safety belt, then patiently waited and looked on as the AEGIS approached Earth, to finally adopt a low polar orbit around it. William Windsor, their communications officer, soon made a report which unsettled Tina and Samuel.

‘’I have the time signal from the Greenwich Astronomical Observatory, Captain: the time is 13:58 and the date is Tuesday, June the Second of 1942. I am resetting our situational clock now.’

‘’June of 1942?! But we are in the middle of the Second World War!’ exclaimed Samuel Schmeling. On her part, Tina’s reaction was to look at Eve Silisca, sitting to her right.

‘’Quick, Eve, download our historical data concerning World War Two. Find out what are the critical dates around June the Second of 1942. I myself remember that we should be close to the date on which the Battle of Midway was fought: I studied in depth that ancient naval battle during my past years but I can’t remember its exact date.’’

Eve nodded once to that: Tina was known to be an avid reader of naval warfare history, a subject she was nearly passionate about. In fact, her knowledge and understanding of past naval battles had helped her many times in the past in defeating opponents to her ship, especially during the Uprising of 2315, when the Spacers’ League fought for its independence from the central Earth government, and again during the brief war with the Drazts of Ross 128 in 2320. Connecting herself directly with the databanks of VISION, the central artificial intelligence computer of the AEGIS, she downloaded in seconds all the historical data and information it contained concerning World War Two in general and the year 1942 in particular.

‘’You were right, Tina: the Battle of Midway was fought on June the Fourth of 1942, starting with an early morning Japanese airstrike against Midway, followed a few hours later by the main carrier against carrier battle. Then, on August Seven, the Americans will launch their amphibious assault against Guadalcanal, followed the next day by the disastrous naval Battle of Savo Island. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons will follow on August 23, itself followed by the Battle of Cape Esperance on the night of October Eleven.’

‘’My god! We wil be able to witness and record some of the biggest battles of World War Two in the Pacific.’ said Samuel Schmeling, obviously pleased. ‘’What about the war around Europe?’

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‘’Well, in North Africa, the period of June 1942 to May 1943 will see a series of intense battles between the German and Italian forces on one side and the British, American and French forces on the other side, culminating in the defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa in May of 1943. The Allied invasion of Sicily followed on July Tenth of 1943, with the first Allied landings in Italy happening in September of the same year. In Eastern Europe, the Germans will be pushing eastward into the Ukraine and Russia, with the battle for Stalingrad starting in August of 1942 and ending in a severe German defeat in early February of 1943. In Poland, the Germans will pursue their extermination policies against the Jews of Poland, triggering in January of 1943 the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, which ended in May of 1943 with the total destruction of the ghetto and the deportation and extermination of its inhabitants. In the Mediterranean, the second half of 1942 will see the air and sea battles for the island of Malta, while there will be some intense warfare at sea in the Atlantic. In Western Europe, the main event in 1942 will be the failed Dieppe operation of August Nineteen, when Canadian Army units attempted an amphibious landing against the French port of Dieppe and suffered appalling losses. There will also be a series of Allied air bombardments against Germany in 1942 and 1943.’

‘’Hell, that’s a lot of priceless historical events to document and record, Tina.’

said an enthusiastic Samuel Schmeling. ‘’Let’s put our mission to 1963 on the backburner and concentrate instead on covering the next few months of World War Two.’’

It took Tina only a few seconds of reflexion before she nodded her head, to the contentment of the historian.

‘’Agreed! We wil stay in this time period for a few months, in order to document and record the main events of this war up to the Spring of 1943. Eve, I would like you to produce and print a chronological list of events in World War Two, covering the period from June of 1942 to June 1943, so that we could choose what to observe. However, don’t base yourself only on the size or ferocity of the battles to be fought. Note as well the events of significance in terms of human, political or social impact. Our goal will be for us and our people to learn lessons from this war, not to glorify it or to simply produce a horror show. Once we will have your list, me, you and Samuel will study it and decide what we will concentrate on, as I suspect that there will simply be too much happening at the same time to cover it all properly.’

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‘’We could always assign a number of reconnaissance and spy probes to target events the AEGIS wil not be able to cover directly, Tina.’

‘’An excellent idea, Eve. I am afraid that poor Charles Melton, our video documentary technician, wil be kept very busy for quite a few months.’

‘’I can always give him a hand, Tina. Besides, like me, he doesn’t need to sleep...ever.’

‘’True! On my part, I wil play the documentary producer and will take care of selecting the best takes for our future war documentaries. Well, I will let you make your chronological list of war events while me and Samuel do some preliminary discussion on the subject.’

Tina and Samuel left the bridge sphere and went into the adjacent operations center, where they had time to get themselves cups of coffee and sit at a table before Eve joined them, an electronic data pad in her hands. Tina nodded her head once as Eve was sitting down opposite her and Samuel.

‘’That was fast, Eve.’’

‘’That’s because androids’ AI processing cores works over 2,000 times faster than human brains, Tina. I also connected myself directly to VISION, so didn’t have to waste time in visually reviewing data on a video screen. If you and Samuel will touch my data pad with your own data pads, I will transfer to you my list of World War 2 events for the years 1942 and 1943.’

Both Tina and Samuel did so, then started reviewing Eve’s list. Tina nearly immediately noticed something about the fifth entry on the list.

‘’Why is the entry for 5-6 August 1942 marked with three asterixes, Eve? It notes the departure from the Warsaw Ghetto of 192 Jewish orphans and of a dozen accompanying adult staff.’

Eve looked most soberly at Tina as she answered her.

‘’I denoted it because, contrary to all the other events on my list, we could in my opinion influence and modify it without noticeable consequences for the integrity of history...if we do things right. Highlight it to get the details concerning that event.’

Tina and Samuel did so and read the two pages of text which appeared on their pads.

As she did so, Tina’s expression changed gradually, with a mix of sadness and horror appearing on her face.

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‘’My god! I knew from my studies on history about the Jewish holocaust of World War Two but only in general terms. Could the Nazis real y be such monsters?’’

‘’They could...and they were, Tina. According to our historical data, about 2,000

Jews a day were moved out of the Warsaw Ghetto by train during parts of 1942 and sent to the Treblinka extermination camp, to the northeast of Warsaw, where most of them were gassed to death right after their arrival. This mass deportation continued until the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in revolt in early 1943 and resisted further deportation moves by the Germans until the Nazis assaulted, burned down and destroyed completely the Warsaw Ghetto, killing or deporting in the process all of its occupants. Normally, we could not change this atrocity without gravely affecting the integrity of History but this small part of it could safely be manipulated by us in order to save those 192 orphans, some of whom were as young as two-year-old, and the staff of their orphanage.’’

‘’And how could we do that, Eve? We don’t have the facilities or even the food reserves on the AEGIS to care for some 200 persons. Even if we really could save them in a discreet manner, we would then be forced to abandon this mission and return to the NOSTROMO and the year 2339. There is also the question of how those poor children would react to being transported to the far future. Please remember that the Jews of this time period were mostly deeply religious people with dreams of one day emigrating to Palestine, which they called ‘The Promised Land’. In contrast, the Spacers’ League is a completely atheistic society where they would feel isolated and misunderstood. Even the Israel of 2339 has mostly turned into an atheistic society following a long series of wars and conflicts with its neighbors, who were themselves Muslim societies but who also became atheistic during the three centuries which followed this war.’

‘’And being kil ed by the Germans would not matter to them, Tina? We are talking about 192 orphaned children who are presently barely surviving in horrible conditions, without the support of their now dead parents and siblings. There are a number of pictures attached to this explanation text. Click on the third one, Tina.’

Tina, imitated by Samuel Schmeling, did so, making the said picture enlarge to fill the screen of her data pad. Tears started to come to her eyes as she looked at an old black and white group photo of nearly 200 children of varying ages looking at the camera, along with about a dozen adult women and one bearded man. None of them smiled, contrary to normal group pictures. Eve then spoke again as Tina was still starring at the picture.

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‘’These children could be saved by us and would simply disappear from recorded history, which actually could only speculate about their final fate, as the Germans kept no records of the names of the thousands of Jews they were exterminating every day in this war. The last time they were seen was when they boarded in Warsaw a train heading to Treblinka. I already have a plan about how to save them without impacting recorded History. We will however need some help from the future in this.’

Tina, still unable to look away from the young faces in the picture, had difficulty to speak then, a big lump up her throat.

‘’How do you plan to save them, Eve, and what wil we need to do this?’’

Eve took a couple of minutes to describe her plan to Tina, who nodded her head once before calling the bridge via the intercom system.

‘’Harrison, prepare a courier probe for launch: I wil have a message to send to the NOSTROMO.’

04:30 (Central Pacific Time)

Thursday, June 04, 1942

Operations center of the command cutter AEGIS

Loitering at high altitude above the island of Midway Central Pacific, Earth

‘’The Japanese carriers have started to launch their planes, Tina. I have a reconnaissance drone flying over the carrier KAGA and filming the takeoffs.’

‘’And I have another reconnaissance drone flying over the American carrier YORKTOWN.’ added Eve, who was working the control station next to that of Charles Melton, the android specialist in video documentary recording and montage for the Tempus Team. Tina, who was simultaneously watching three video screens, nodded her head in acknowledgement.

‘’Good! We are ready to watch and record one of the most epic naval battles of this war.’

Tina then returned her attention to her display screens, on which she could see the four Japanese carriers launch their attack aircraft destined to strike the American base on Midway, with one of the screens showing the YORKTOWN launching a number of reconnaissance aircraft. Her third screen showed the island of Midway, as it was filmed by another reconnaissance drone controlled by her from the AEGIS.

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‘’Allison, attach a reconnaissance drone to the Japanese strike aircraft group now taking off and follow them during their attack on Midway. Christian, take another reconnaissance drone and attach it to the American planes now searching for the Japanese fleet. I want us to have complete, simultaneous video and sound coverage of all the main parties in this battle.’’

‘’On it, Tina!’ replied Al ison Stokke from the bridge sphere, with Christian Bale doing the same a second later. Soon, Charles Melton sent electronic commands to all three reconnaissance drones covering the incoming battle.

‘’I am detaching four secondary probes from each of our reconnaissance drones and dispersing them around their parent drones, so that we will have multiple angles of view while recording the action.’’

‘’How far wil those probes be from their parent drones, Charles?’ asked Tina.

‘’They wil stay some 500 meters from their drones and wil follow closely the movements of the aircraft or ships they wil be filming, Tina.’

‘’Very good! Once that wil be done, we will have another hour to wait before the real action starts. In the meantime, me and Samuel wil go have breakfast.’

‘’Bon appétit!’ replied Eve, smiling, as Tina and Samuel rose from their chairs.

Eve then checked on the radio traffic from the Japanese and the Americans but, as she expected, they were keeping radio silence in this very early phase of the battle.

Tina and Samuel returned to their respective control stations at 05:30 and then had only to wait for a few minutes before Eve spoke up.

‘’The PBY amphibian from Midway is

reporting on the radio that it has spotted the Japanese fleet and is giving its position, speed and direction of travel.’

‘’The dices have just been rolled for one of the biggest naval battles of this war.’

said Tina while watching the view of the said amphibian taken by a camera of the reconnaissance drone overflying the Japanese carrier group. The American amphibian reconnaissance aircraft was however quickly set upon by the marauding Japanese fighter aircraft loitering above the Japanese carriers and was promptly shot down, making Tina speak with some grief in her voice.

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‘’Those flyers in this PBY were brave men indeed. Too many people end up forgetting that wars are overwhelmingly about death, suffering and destruction, and not so-called ‘glory’, and this even in our own century.’

She then consulted her list of historically-recorded timings for the battle.

‘’The next significant action will occur at around 06:20, when the Japanese planes launched from their carriers will bomb Midway.’

That foreseen attack, made by 118 Japanese aircraft, caused some serious damage to the American base on Midway but also suffered some casualties from the ferocious resistance by a few American fighter planes and by the anti-aircraft guns protecting Midway. Some fifty minutes later, it was the turn of the Americans to attack, but with only ten aircraft sent by Midway against the Japanese carriers. However, that attack proved fruitless, with no direct hits on any Japanese ship. Tina, who knew that this was only the prelude to a much more violent clash, redirected her reconnaissance drones and their secondary probes, in order to concentrate her attention on the Japanese and American fleets, leaving only one probe over Midway. At 07:40, a Japanese reconnaissance floatplane launched by the cruiser TONE finally spotted part of the American fleet, which included the carrier U.S.S. YORKTOWN. However, the Japanese air observer succeeded in completely misreporting that important sighting, making Tina shake her head and make a facepalm.

‘’This guy sees one carrier, two cruisers and five destroyers and reports only ‘a few large ships’? Man, he is either myopic or he failed his ship recognition classes.’

‘’Don’t forget that the navies of this time had only a few months to train their people, instead of spending years like we do for our own ship crews.’ said Charles Melton to Tina. ‘’Also, their sensors consist in only ye old ‘Mark One Eyeball’, supplemented by binoculars and shitty radios operated with morse code keys.’

‘’Thanks for reminding me of that, Charles: I believe that the AEGIS spoiled me in terms of sensors capabilities.’’

‘’Pah! 24th Century sensors technology vs 20th Century technology: who cares?’’

joked Eve, making Tina chuckle.

‘’The Japanese would! They certainly would love to get their hands on our sensors. Still, that misreporting by that Japanese scout plane is going to soon cost the Japanese dearly in this battle.’’

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In contrast, the Americans had time to launch four separate aircraft strike groups from either their carriers or from Midway and to attack the Japanese fleet, but without success, before the same Japanese scout plane sent a second report by radio at 08:20.

‘’The enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a carrier?!’’ said in a sarcastic tone Tina. ‘’Bravo, champion! Better late than never. Charles, could you fly one of your secondary spy probes inside the command bridge of the carrier AKAGI? It would be great if we could film Admiral Nagumo’s reaction when he wil receive that message from his scout plane.’’

‘’Consider it done, Tina. It will play the proverbial ‘fly on the wall’ role once in position.’

The late report from the scout plane, along with the unsatisfactory results of the bombing of Midway, then pushed Vice Admiral Nagumo into making a major blunder, by giving in succession contradictory orders to rearm his aircraft kept in reserve with contact bombs instead of torpedoes, then to rearm them again with torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs once he got the report about an American carrier being spotted.

Then, with the decks and hangars of his four carriers strewn with hastily put aside torpedoes and bombs, 41 torpedo bombers from the American carriers attacked, paralyzing the preparation and launch of another Japanese air strike while the Japanese gunners and fighter pilots defended their ships. Tina looked with sadness at her screens as 34 of those American planes were shot down despite the incredible bravery of their crews, without any torpedoes exploding against the Japanese carriers.

‘’So many brave men, dying without any positive results. The American Mark 13

torpedo has again shown itself to be a complete dud. The assholes in charge of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance should have been court-martialed for letting such a piece of shitty ordnance stay in service despite the warnings and complaints from Navy submarine commanders and from Navy aviators.’

‘’Well, we did have our own snafu3 recently, Tina.’ reminded Eve. ‘’Our own Spacers’ League Navy managed to ‘lose’ one anti-matter warhead kept in its arsenal, remember? That ‘lost’ warhead then was used to destroy the NOSTROMO while it was in Earth orbit. Thankfully, the AEGIS was just coming back from a mission in the past 3 SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Very common and popular American expression to describe a chaotic, disorganized situation.

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and, after observing the NOSTROMO’s destruction, was able to go back in time and prevent that catastrophe from happening.’

Tina was silent for a moment as she rehashed that bitter memory in her mind.

‘’You know what, Eve? With the threat of the Space Predators now a thing of the past, maybe I should push Chairwoman Mercier in taking out of service our anti-matter converter weapons. Those weapons are too dangerous to be kept in service, where some megalomaniac could again grab some of them to destroy us and grab power.’

‘’What about our own stocks of anti-matter weapons, Tina? We were the ones who developed those weapons, even though it was done in order to survive the Space Predators’ threat.’

‘’If need be, I would be ready to get rid of our own stocks or, at the least, to store them in reserve, in case another major threat materializes. Yes, I will definitely have to talk with Jeanne Mercier about this once back in 2339.’’

With that said, Tina concentrated her attention back on her screens, in time for the arrival of American dive bomber aircraft over the Japanese fleet. In the space of mere five minutes, those 47 SBD dive-bombers completely changed the course of the battle...and of the war in the Pacific, by striking and hitting hard the Japanese carriers AKAGI, KAGA and SORYU. With his flagship, the carrier AKAGI, on fire, along with the KAGA and the SORYU, Vice Admiral Nagumo was soon forced to transfer his flag and himself to a cruiser as his last remaining effective carrier, the HIRYU, prepared to launch a retaliatory strike on the American fleet. The planes from the HIRYU did find and hit the carrier YORKTOWN, which was put on fire and eventually abandoned, but the Japanese triumph at that success was short-lived, with American dive-bombers finding the HIRYU

two hours later, hitting it and putting in on fire. Followed by a reconnaissance drone, the HIRYU’s crew did its best to save their carrier but it ended up having to be abandoned and then scuttled the next morning. With their four carriers now sunk, what remained of the Japanese fleet destined to take Midway had to turn around and return to Japan, conceding victory to the Americans.

Having spent the whole day and night following the battle on her display screens, with only a few short rest periods and meal breaks at intervals, a tired Tina looked again at her list of significant events and spoke to Eve, Samuel, Charles Melton and Harrison Ford on the morning of June Fifth.

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‘’Alright, guys: our next item on our list is the Battle of Tobruk, in North Africa, which will start on June Twentieth, while we will also cover the battle and siege of Sevastopol, in the Crimea. We will thus have plenty of time to review our various recordings on the Battle of Midway and to turn them into as good a documentary video as we can produce. However, me and Samuel will need to take a shower and to get some sleep first. Eve, Charles, you will be in charge of starting to assemble and splice together our recordings while we rest.’’

‘’You can count on us, Tina.’

22:29 (Warsaw Time)

Wednesday, August 05, 1942

Dom Sierot Jewish orphanage, Sliska # 9

Warsaw Ghetto, Occupied Poland

Henryk Goldszmit, better known under his pen name of Janusz Korczak, felt both depressed and worried as he went to his bedroom, situated on the top floor of the orphanage he was running inside the Warsaw Ghetto. To say that the future of both the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and that of Poland was bleak would have been a huge understatement. He, like his adult staff and the 192 children under his care, were all weak from a long period of near-starvation diet caused by the German occupation and their repression of the Jews living in the Ghetto. Also, tens of thousands of Ghetto occupants had been forcibly removed during the last few weeks, supposedly to be relocated to forced labor centers. Then, in the afternoon, a German SS officer had come to the orphanage to warn him to have the children and the staff ready to move out the next morning and march to the Umschlagplatz, a large open-air place used by the Germans to assemble Jews before making them board trains. Only a few hours earlier, a member of the ZEGOTA, the Polish underground resistance organization, had contacted him to again offer to hide him outside of the Ghetto. Janusz had again refused that offer, telling the Pole that he was not going to leave his little charges alone.

Now, as he was prepared to go to bed, he wasn’t sure about what his orphans would expect out of the Ghetto.

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He had removed his jacket and was about to remove as well his shirt in order to have a quick wash out of a basin of water when someone moved out from behind a long curtain, unmasking itself. His heart jumping in his chest, he turned to face the newcomer in the semi-dark room, which was illuminated only by a pair of candles, while tensing up.

To his surprise, his unannounced visitor turned out to be a young woman wearing some kind of dark, body-fitting uniform.

‘’Who...who are you? What do you want?’’

The woman, who was quite tall for a woman and who was also very beautiful, answered him in a soft voice while speaking Hebrew.

‘’My name is Gal Gadot, and I came to help you and your orphans.’

‘’Help me? How?’’

‘’First, by giving you some instructions about what will happen to you, your staff and your orphans tomorrow, when you will leave this orphanage to go to the Umschlagplatz. There, the Germans will make you all board a train, supposedly to move you to a farm setting. In reality, you will go to Treblinka, a German extermination camp where the Jews from this Ghetto are either killed with toxic gasses or worked to death.

But don’t worry: we wil not let you and your children die.’’

‘’Who is we? Are you part of the ZEGOTA?’’

‘’No, I am not part of the Polish Resistance, nor am I from this Ghetto. I and others like me came from the far future and intend to save you, but in a way that will not impact History as it was recorded.’’

‘’I... I am not sure that I understand or even believe you, miss. From the future, you said?’

‘’Yes, more precisely from the 24th Century. By then, time travel has become a reality but the dangers of such a technology in terms of possibly throwing the historical timeline into chaos and erasing ourselves from History have also been recognized.

Thus, what we do in the past must be either non-intrusive or exploit holes in recorded history, when some people disappeared without any historical mention of what happened to them. In your case and that of your orphans, History recorded that you went to the Umschlagplatz as ordered by the Germans and boarded a train there, along with hundreds of other Jews. That train then headed to the Treblinka extermination camp, where the Jews arriving there were routinely led to gas chambers and murdered mere hours after their arrival. Since the Germans didn’t systematically record the names

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of those Jews who were gassed right after their arrival, no historical records exist of what happened to you, your orphans and to the other Jews aboard the train you will take tomorrow. In fact, the date of your death was left blank in history for years, until a date of death of May Nine, 1946 was declared for official purposes.’’

Janusz, who had been most skeptical at first, then started to wonder if what that woman was saying could possibly be true.

‘’How do you propose to make us escape, Miss Gadot?’’

‘’I wil not tell you now, so as not to risk that an indiscretion could ruin our plan.

Just know this: tomorrow, you will do as the Germans asked and will march your orphans and the members of your staff to the Umschlagplatz while dressed in your best clothes. There, you will do as if you believed the fables about going to live in a pastoral setting and will board the train waiting for you. Once away from Warsaw and once we will be able to operate under cover of darkness, we will come and save you. However, and this is most important, you must not tell your staff or the children about my visit or about where the Germans are sending you. Please understand that any indiscretion that would force us to act in the open, with witnesses present, will lead to us having to cancel our plan and abandon you to your historical fate.’’

That last sentence made some anger puff up inside Janusz, who replied in a terse tone to Gadot.

‘’You would let my orphans and staff die just to protect your anonymity? How could...’

It was then the turn of the woman to harden her tone.

‘’Mister Korczak, please understand this: over 55 million people will die before this war is brought to an end, while millions more will die after it as either homeless and starving refugees or as prisoners of war in Stalin’s work camps. On the other hand, the actual existence of over nine billion Humans who live in the 24th Century would be at risk of being erased if we don’t handle this present case with utter discretion. Nine billion against 205 people... You either promise me now that you will do as I told you or I will leave and let History follow its course. It’s your choice!’’

Now understanding what was presently at stake, Janusz forced himself to calm down and adopted a more conciliatory tone of voice.

‘’Alright, Miss Gadot, I will follow your instructions. I do have a last question for you, though.’’

‘’Ask!’

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‘’Once you will have saved us from that train, where will you bring us? To Palestine?’

Gadot shook her head slowly as she answered him.

‘’No, not Palestine. That would negate our goal of keeping your historical fate a speculative one. Besides, Palestine will go through decades of ethnic and religious strife and through many wars after this conflict. Believe me, Palestine will be no paradise in the years to come. Instead, we will bring you to the 24th Century, where your orphans will be able to grow and live free and in peace. Do you agree to that, Mister Korczak?’’

‘’To live in the far future... Alright, my orphans should like that.’

‘’Remember, though: do not tell anyone about my visit until you see me again tomorrow evening.’

Janusz was about to ask another question but froze in stupor as Gal Gadot started floating silently off the floor. She then bent into a ball and flew through the open window of Janusz’ bedroom before climbing out of his sight into the night sky. Shaken by all this, Janusz had to go sit down and rehash in his mind what had just happened.

14:04 (Warsaw Time)

Thursday, August 06, 1942

The Umschlagplatz, Jewish Ghetto

When

Janusz

arrived

at

the

Umschlagplatz, which the Nazis used as an

assembly point for the Jews they collected, with twelve female staff and with 192

children ranging in age from two to sixteen following him, a SS officer was there to greet him with instructions to follow. The man however looked inquisitively at Janusz before asking him a question in German, which Janusz was fluent in.

‘’Uh, aren’t you the writer Janusz Korczak?’’

‘’Yes, I am, mister.’ replied Janusz, a bit surprised by the SS officer’s politeness.

‘’Why do you ask?’’

The German then lowered his voice, continuing in the same polite tone.

‘’One of the children’s books you wrote was a favorite of mine as I grew up.

Look, I could arrange for you to be transferred to Theresienstadt as a special treatment case.’

‘’Thank you for your offer but I will continue accompanying my orphans, mister.’

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The SS man looked at the close to 200 children following Janusz, some regret visible on his face. His rigid training then took back over his sympathy for Korczak.

‘’As you wish, Mister Korczak. Go sit with your orphans and your women in that corner of the plaza. Your train should arrive in a few hours.’

‘’Thank you, sir. FOLLOW ME, CHILDREN!’

The orphans, all dressed in their best clothes and carrying blue knapsacks, obeyed him and went with him to sit on the bare concrete floor of the plaza, where over a thousand other Jews were already waiting. There, he made the children wait while encouraging them to read their favorite books or to play with their favorite toys, which they had packed in their knapsacks.

When their train arrived, over

six hours later and obviously late,

judging from the growing impatience of

the SS officers, and when they were

led by SS guards to the embarkation

zone, the Polish Jews saw that they

were going to travel in old, dirty and

smelly cattle cars instead of passenger cars. Those who were hoping to get some provisions of food and water for their trip were disappointed, with the SS soldiers being quite brutal in the way they ‘encouraged’ the Jews into climbing into the cars, which stank of urine and feces. A hundred Jews or more were piled into each of the cattle cars. Janusz and his orphans ended up filling two adjacent cars but, due to their generally smaller sizes, were less pressed together than in the case of the adult Jews occupying the other cars. Once the cars were full, the SS soldiers closed the doors and locked them from the outside, making it impossible for the Jews to escape during the trip. After a short wait, the Jews then felt their train starting to move and they sat down as best they could in the cramped space of their cars.

The train went quite slowly at first as it went through the Greater Warsaw area but, even once out in rural setting, didn’t go much faster, probably due to the age and poor condition of the cars and locomotives. The train then stopped after half an hour of travel, obeying red signalization lights to stop and wait. The train engineer reasoned that this was to let the tracks to another train with a higher priority but, in reality, those rail

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signalization lights had been trafficked by androids in order to delay the train. That wait turned into another hour and the Jews still had not arrived by the time night fell. By then, Janusz was starting to seriously wonder if Gal Gadot had let him and his orphans down.

Mere minutes after sunset, the door of the car in which Janusz and a hundred children and four women were travelling slid open after being unlocked from the outside, even though the train was still moving. His hopes back up, Janusz hurried to the door and saw in the near darkness that a sort of strange, flying vehicle the size of a small car was now glued to the side of the rail car and had its glass canopy slid open to the rear.

A bald man wearing the same kind of dark uniform as Gal Gadot then spoke to him in Hebrew while waving one arm.

‘’QUICK, HAVE SIX KIDS GET IN OUR SCOOTER. MORE SCOOTERS ARE

WAITING TO TAKE THE REST OF YOU.’

‘’THANK GOD! YOU CAME FOR US! ALRIGHT, KIDS, I WANT SIX OF YOU

TO SIT IN THAT FLYING CAR. MAKE IT QUICK!’

The children, who froze at first at the sight of the fantastic machine, then quickly understood that it represented their way to escape the Germans and started obeying the instructions from Janusz. While helping two of the smaller children get in the flying vehicle, Janusz was able to see that a similar flying vehicle was glued to the other rail car carrying the rest of his children and staff, with children also boarding that vehicle.

Once six children were aboard the scooter piloted by the bald man, the canopy of that scooter slid closed, with the machine then quickly climbing out of sight into the darkness.

As soon as it was gone, another machine took its place and more children were able to sit in it. With a continuous carrousel of scooters coming to the two rail cars, those cars quickly emptied, with Janusz and three of his female nurses being the last to leave their smelly cattle car. As they were climbing into the night sky, Janusz patted the shoulder of Gal Gadot, who was piloting the scooter and who had closed back and locked the rail car’s sliding door before moving away from it.

‘’Thank you so much for saving us, Miss Gadot. What next?’’

‘’I fly you to my ship, which is presently hovering a few thousand meters above us. Once in it, I will explain to you and your children what wil happen next.’

Having never flown in an aircraft before, like most of the people in 1942, Janusz kept to himself the numerous question he had in mind and instead avidly watched on as the scooter was climbing into the night sky. He soon started to distinguish a large, dark

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mass floating silently above the countryside. However, it took him some time before he could realize how big that object was.

‘’My God! What is that? How big is it?’’

‘’That is the heavy cargo shuttle FERRY MAN, the ship we came in from the future. It has a lenticular shape and is 200 meters in diameter. We are soon going to get inside, where you and your orphans will be taken care of by my comrades while we will travel to the 24th Century. Your questions will be answered once we will be aboard the FERRY MAN.’

Fascinated, like the three Polish nurses travelling with him, by what he was seeing, Janusz then stayed silent as the scooter flew in the big ship, entering a vast empty space via an outer door the size of a large barn door. Inside what appeared to be some sort of cargo hold, the scooter piloted by Gal Gadot went to park with other scooters lining one of the walls and from which Jewish orphans and staff members were stepping out, to be then corralled into a group. Janusz stepped out of Gadot’s scooter and was then directed to the larger group of Polish Jews by men and women wearing dark uniforms. The fact that an equal number of men and women composed these armed persons struck at once Janusz, who came from a time period when war was considered strictly as a man’s business. One of the persons in grey uniforms, a man of medium height with a bald head, stepped on a small crate in order to be seen by all, then started speaking in Polish.

‘’Welcome on the heavy cargo shuttle FERRY MAN, good people. My name is Yul Brynner and I am in charge of the team which picked you up from that train bringing you to Treblinka. You may all wonder what this ship is and where it is coming from. Well, to tell it as simply as I can, this ship and my team came from the far future, from the 24th Century to be more exact, in order to save you from certain death in Treblinka, which is in reality a German extermination camp where tens of thousands of Jews have already been murdered in the last few months.’

Exclamations of horror and short exchanges followed, with Brynner waiting a few seconds before continuing.

‘’Now, you may have many questions for me, like why we saved you, or where we will now bring you to. First, we saved you mostly because we could do so discreetly, without risking to throw recorded history into chaos. Such chaos would have in turn

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risked modifying History as known to us and thus put our own society at risk of being erased from History and then being replaced by something utterly unpredictable. We took the risk of saving you to save the young orphans of your group and to offer you all new lives in a safe and peaceful new world in the year 2339.’

‘’Wil we go to a future Poland, sir?’’ asked one of the older teenagers in the group of orphans, making Brynner shake his head in response.

‘’No! We came from another world populated by Humans in 2339, a large moon located in another star system than that of the Sun. That moon is called ‘New Haven’

and it was established nineteen years ago as a place of refuge and resettlement for refugees fleeing conflicts or natural disasters on Earth. New Haven is mostly an agrarian and pastoral world, with only a minimal amount of advanced industries on it, so you should feel more at home there than on the other worlds of the Spacers’ League, which represents the various star systems colonized by Humans during the 24th Century.

Once on New Haven, you will pass full medical exams and will be given new homes. In the case of the orphans among you, we will also start to find caregivers and tutors acceptable to you, so that you could grow up within caring people. Your first year on New Haven wil be concentrated on learning English, the basic language of the Spacers’

League, and to educate you to the standards of our civilization and time period. For those of you who are of working age, meaning eighteen or over, plenty of simple jobs in our food production industries, the mainstay of our local economy, are available. In essence, it won’t be much different for you on New Haven than to live on a farm on Earth, if you except of course the various advanced technologies we use daily. Right now, we will lead you to one of the decks above this cargo hold and will let you have a hot shower, new clothes and a good meal, then will officially register you as new citizens of New Haven.’

‘’Why couldn’t we simply stay in Poland, in a period after this war?’’ asked a mature woman who had worked as a cook at the orphanage.

‘’Because, in order to avoid History to be rewritten, something that may erase my civilization, you simply cannot reappear on Earth in this century, or the next one, madam. We already took huge risks concerning our own world in order to save your group. The only alternative for us concerning you and those orphans would be to return you to your train and let you die in Treblinka. I am sorry if this may sound brutal but it is the simple reality, madam.’

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Another female staff from the orphanage standing next to the cook then whispered something to her that made her clam up. Satisfied, Yul Brynner smiled to the Polish Jews and pointed to a nearby bank of elevator lifts.

‘’My companions wil now escort you upstairs in small groups, so that you could wash up, get new clothes and have a good meal.’

On those words, Gal Gadot took with her Janusz, three nurses and six young children and started leading them towards the elevators. As he closely followed Gadot, Janusz couldn’t help examine the shoulder patch sewn on her grey uniform: it featured in large Roman numerals the number 21, plus a few words in English he didn’t know.

‘’Uh, may I ask you what your shoulder patch says, Miss Gadot? I suppose that it tells what unit you are in.’’

‘’You are correct, Mister Korczak. I am actual y the commander of the 21st Century of the First Security Legion of the New Haven Protection Forces.’

‘’And why do you use the old unit designations of the Roman Army? Isn’t that a bit anachronistic for an advanced society like yours?’’

‘’Many says so but it does reflect the fact that the ancient Roman Army was a very efficient and disciplined organization, something that is reflected in our own force.’’

‘’That makes sense.’ said Janusz, who then kept silent while going into one of the elevator cabins.

Their group went up by two levels before the doors of the cabin slid open and Gal Gadot invited the Jews to follow her. Following a large hallway for about thirty meters, she then entered a compartment which looked like a sort of waiting lounge, with a service counter along one wall and six rows of benches filling the open space and already partly occupied by Polish Jews.

‘’This is where we wil register you as new citizens of New Haven, my friends.

Please take a seat. On my part, I wil go help the personnel at the service counter.’

As his three nurses and six orphans went to take seats, Janusz looked at the four men and four women standing behind the service counter. They all wore the same grey, form-fitting uniform as Gal Gadot and all looked very fit and young, the eldest one looking to be in her mid-thirties at the most. What especially intrigued Janusz was their highly varied racial diversity, with Caucasians equally mixed with Asians and Africans.

Up to now, all the armies he had seen in 1942 were quite homogenous in terms of ethnicity, so these people clearly were apart, not counting of course their fantastic

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technology. If anything, he would have pegged Gal Gadot as being of Semitic blood, while the name she wore certainly sounded Hebrew. Putting those observations in the back of his mind, he then went to sit next to his nurses and waited. His wait wasn’t a long one, as the persons working behind the counter appeared both fast and efficient and as they appeared to type the information they collected, instead of using paper forms. They also used what seemed to be some kind of miniature cameras to take the pictures of the people they processed. After some seven minutes of waiting, Janusz was called to a wicket manned by Gal Gadot, who seemed to have decided to take special care of him. Going to the counter, Gadot started by asking his full name, date and place of birth, typing that information on a keyboard associated with a sort of small glass window. Then, she asked him to put both of his hands flat on two separate glass plates on the counter, finally ending the registration session by asking Janusz to stay still while the camera mounted on a semi-circular track turned from one side of his face to the other.

‘’You are now registered as a citizen of New Haven, Mister Korczak. Here is your identity card, hooked to a long neck ribbon for your convenience. I will now escort your group to a dressing room, where you will receive two sets of fresh clothes, a small carry-on bag and a personal hygiene kit, and this before going to have a hot shower and a meal.’

‘’Just the word ‘meal’ makes me hungry, Miss Gadot. Uh, may I ask you a question, miss? Are you Jewish? Are you from Palestine?’

Somehow, his anodyne question erased the smile on her face and she looked at him with utter seriousness.

‘’I was not born, Mister Korczak: I was built. I am a sentient android, a robot with a human shape. Al my companions are androids as well.’

That statement acted like a hammer blow on Janusz’ head, who was left stunned and speechless for long seconds as he stared at the beautiful ‘woman’ facing him.

‘’A... a robot? I just can’t believe this, miss.’

‘’You wil get to believe me in time, Mister Korczak. Please keep in mind that we are highly intelligent sentient beings with distinct individual personalities. We are no mindless machines and we are legally recognized by the Spacers’ League as full citizens, with the same rights as Human citizens. By the way, we do have contacts with a number of other intelligent species we encountered in other star systems and the old religious fables about God or gods creating Earth, mankind and the Universe have long

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been debunked and discredited in our society. Now, what we believe in is science and humanism... Wil you be okay, Mister Korczak? You look pale.’’

‘’I... I think that I will be alright, miss. Just let me sit down for a moment.’

‘’I wil wait.’

Janusz then walked back to his bench and sat down, trying to stop his head from spinning. Contrary to most of his staff and orphans, he was basically an agnostic and thus did not pay much attention to what either the Torah or the Bible said about men and the Universe. Still, what Gal Gadot had just revealed to him was truly stunning, if not to say shocking. One of his three nurses noticed his haggard look and eyed him with concern.

‘’Are you alright, Doctor Korczak?’’

‘’I wil be, Miss Sobieski. Al this is quite unsettling, I must say.’

‘’You can say that again, Doctor.’

Some fifteen minutes later, after everybody in the room had been registered and photographed, Gal Gadot came to Janusz Korczak and smiled to him while speaking in Hebrew.

‘’If you and your friends will follow me, I will lead you to our personnel services section, where you will get new fresh clothes and a chance to shower before going to our cafeteria for a good meal.’’

‘’And after that? How long wil be that trip to this world of New Haven, Miss Gadot?’’

‘’Our flight to New Haven will take only minutes, including the time to prepare our temporal jump, followed by our jump to New Haven.’’

‘’A jump? I don’t understand.’

‘’Don’t worry about that for now, Doctor Koczak: it is quite complicated science and you wil have plenty of time in the future to learn about it. Now, please follow me.’’

Enticed by the promise of a hot shower and hot meal, Janusz and the women and children around him then got up from their seats and followed the android ‘woman’.

Some forty minutes later, clean and wearing new clothes consisting of loose-fitting coveralls and running shoes, the Jews were led to the crew cafeteria, adjacent to a big dining room, where they were served chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots, with either milk, coffee, tea, water or tomato juice as beverage. Hanna Sobieski, the

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youngest of his nurses at the age of 34, closed her eyes in delight as she ate her first piece of chicken.

‘’My God! If this is the standard of food quality and quantity we wil live with on this New Haven, then I wil be happy to live there.’’

‘’More importantly is how our orphans wil be fed and raised, Hanna.’ said Janusz. ‘’Everything we did up to now was for them, not for us.’

As he was finished speaking, a very brief flash of orange light permeated the whole ship, making him look around him in confusion.

‘’Uh! What was that?’’

A second flash of light, slightly different in color, followed less than a minute later, itself followed by an announcement via overhead speakers made by Gal Gadot.

‘’We have now arrived in the Wolf 1061 solar system, in which New Haven is located. We will land at the Camelot Astroport in 45 minutes, so take your time to finish your meals. Once on the ground, the governor of New Haven, Piotr Romanski, will greet you and will have homes assigned to you. New Haven has various types of lodging for both single people and families but, since most members of your group are young orphans, we will have to split you in small groups of up to eight children and one accompanying adult before dispersing you in the various settlements on New Haven.

Each group will be assigned a security officer able to speak Polish and Hebrew and who will guide and assist you around for your first few weeks and months on New Haven.

Don’t be afraid about being possibly isolated from other groups, as we have very advanced long-distance communications means, including visual ones. On behalf of the New Haven Corporation, I wish you a happy future and a long life on our moon.’’

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CHAPTER 11 – POLITICAL READJUSTMENTS

09:02 (Universal Time)

Tuesday, November 21, 2339

High Council Chamber, Spacers’ League government complex City of New Dawn, Providence (Alpha Centauri Bd) Alpha Centauri star system, 4.36 light-years from Earth

‘’Thank you for coming on such short notice to this emergency meeting of the High Council, ladies and gentlemen. You were called in by me after Tina Forster approached me with an important and very consequential request two days ago.

Basically, she asked me to have all our matter converter warheads and muzzle units dismounted and put into secure storage. I will now let the floor to Tina, to let her explain the reasons for her request. Tina?’’

‘’Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.’ said Tina as she rose from her chair at the conference table, then looked around at the twelve other members of the High Council.

‘’Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the High Council. As you remember well, our matter-converter weapons were invented by the regretted late Doctor Koomak, then were secretly put first into service on my ship, the NOSTROMO, in order to deal with the deadly threat of the Space Predators, who had been attacking us relentlessly and causing us atrocious casualties. Then, over three years ago, I gave to the High Council the secret of Doctor Koomak’s invention, so that the Spacers’ League Navy could be equipped with it in order to better fight the Space Predators. However, with the destruction of the last Space Predator ship by the NOSTROMO, that threat has vanished for good. Thus, our matter-converter arsenal has now outlived its usefulness. It also has unfortunately become a threat by itself, as a bad player in Humanity who could get hold of even a couple of those matter-converter warheads could then blackmail this High Council to obtain more power or even to eliminate those of us who they consider their political opponents.’

Jeanne Mercier, who was closely monitoring the reactions around the conference table and who was also using a special suite of physiological reactions sensors aimed at each member of the High Council, saw Roger Berman, the governor of the recently formed

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Stein Mining Group, which had seceded from the Pallas Mining Industries after the death of Paul Stein, imperceptibly react to the last part of Tina’s announcement, something her sensors confirmed to her.

‘’I knew it! That bastard was in the know about Paul Stein’s plan to destroy the NOSTROMO.’

Tina then continued her presentation while looking at Jeanne.

‘’Two days ago, I approached Chairwoman Mercier to ask her to have all our matter-converter warheads and gun muzzle devices dismounted and put into highly secure storage, in order to eliminate all chances that they could eventually be misused by bad actors. I now urge you to vote in order to enforce that new policy touching our Navy.’

‘’Thank you, Tina. Does any of you have questions, comments or objections to this before we vote on dismantling our matter-converter arsenal? Yes, Governor Berman?’’

The leader of the Stein Mining Group and governor of El Dorado, in the Tau Boötis System, looked less than cooperative when he spoke, pointing an index at Tina.

‘’Even if we do dismount our matter-converter warheads and adaptors from our Navy ships, what tells us that Governor Forster will not simply build in secret more such weapons, since she had already in the past built in secret her own matter-converter arsenal well before she informed us of its existence?’

‘’A fair question, Mister Berman.’ recognized Tina at once. ‘’However, history proved that I never used it to threaten other members of this High Council and strictly used it to fight off the Space Predators and defend the Spacers’ League. In fact, until I divulged its existence to you at a High Council meeting, none of you were aware that I had such a powerful weapon. Now, I am sure that, if I would have tried to threaten or blackmail another member of this council with my arsenal, that member would have immediately complained about it to Chairwoman Mercier. In contrast, what happened instead is that two years ago, a matter-converter warhead was stolen from the Navy’s main arsenal and then employed in an attempt to blow up my NOSTROMO while it was in Earth orbit. Thankfully, we were able to detect that warhead and destroy it before it could approach my ship, on which I was at the time.’’

Her declaration, made while she was starring hard at Roger Berman, understandably raised a tempest of indignant exclamations around the table, forcing Jeanne Mercier into banging repeatedly her gavel to bring order back.

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‘’ORDER! ORDER, PLEASE!’

Once a relative quiet had returned into the chamber, Mercier spoke up in a stern tone of voice while looking around the table.

‘’The Navy launched a high-level investigation into the theft of that matter-converter warhead once it was discovered, but has kept its results confidential up to now...on my direct orders. What was found was that a number of senior Navy officers, along with a handful of ordnance technicians working at our main arsenal, were implicated in that theft. What the Navy investigation also found was that the late Paul Stein, then Chairman of the Pallas Mining Group, was behind that theft and intended to use that warhead to eliminate his main political enemy, Governor Forster, and destroy her flagship, the NOSTROMO. When I got the results of that Navy investigation, I then signed a secret executive order to have Paul Stein eliminated by our security services, for high treason and attempted mass murder.’

Even Tina was stunned by that declaration: Jeanne Mercier had just lied to the whole High Council in order to cover the fact that Tina had killed Stein, and not the Spacers’

League’ security services. While Roger Berman and a few other members of the High Council reacted with anger and dismay at Mercier’s announcement, others, like Vladimir Gasparov, the Chairman of the Sverdlovsk Group and Governor of New Venice, who was no stranger to hardball politics, simply nodded his head in approval.

‘’BUT SUCH EXTRA-LEGAL KILLING IS AGAINST THE LAW! YOU HAD NO

RIGHT TO DO THIS!’ shouted an indignant Roger Berman, attracting an unapologetic look from Jeanne.

‘’You are wrong, Governor Berman. The Constitution of the Spacers’ League allows its chairman to use secret executive orders to authorize clandestine security services operations when high treason, compounded with murder or attempted murder, is committed by a member of this council. The investigation by our Navy amply proved to me that Paul Stein was behind the theft of that matter-converter warhead and the attempt at destroying the NOSTROMO. May I also add that, if that attempt at blowing up the NOSTROMO had succeeded, large chunks of debris may then have rained down on Earth, potentially causing catastrophic damages on the planet surface and also possibly killing thousands, if not millions of people. Should I remind you that the NOSTROMO, when at full load tonnage, has a mass of over 32 million tons. Imagine then what a chunk of steel structure weighing a few tens of thousand tons could cause in terms of damage after entering Earth’s atmosphere. In comparison, the asteroid which caused

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mass extinction on Earth some 65 million years ago weighed much less. Yet, Paul Stein seemingly didn’t care much about that before trying to blow up the NOSTROMO. That consideration alone amply justified my order to have him killed before he could try again.’’

With the leaders of the North American Union and of ASEAN, the two most recent members of the Spacers’ League, throwing poisoned looks at Roger Berman, along with other members of the High Council, Berman judiciously decided to clam up and sit down, containing with difficulty his anger. Jeanne Mercier then looked around the table while speaking further.

‘’I believe that we can now vote on whether to dismantle our matter-converter arsenal or keep it in service. All in favor?... All against?... The ayes have it! I will issue by tomorrow an order to our Navy to disassemble and put into secure storage all of our matter-converter warheads and gun muzzle adaptor units. A Navy team will also travel to the NOSTROMO to supervise the dismantling of their matter-converter units. Now, if anyone wants to ask for a vote of censure against me for having Paul Stein eliminated, then you are free to do so now. However, once this meeting is over, any such vote of censure on this subject will be denied and may attract further investigation by the Spacers’ League’s Security Services. No one? Then, I declare this subject closed! Do we have other motions or questions for this floor? Yes, Governor Ling?’’

The Governor of Mars and of Utopia, in the HD 10647 System, a mature but also most graceful Asian woman, spoke while smiling to Tina Forster.

‘’Excuse me if I raise the matter of another secret move by Chairman Forster but I and others couldn’t help notice that, since she discovered how to travel through time after chasing that last Space Predator ship, a number of ancient animal species and plants which were previously extinct on Earth have since appeared on New Haven and on Asiana, while a number of sensational historical documentaries have been published by the NOSTROMO, documentaries which were obviously produced with footage taken in the past, like the ones on Jack the Ripper and on Joan of Arc. We now have herds of woolly mammoths, African elephants, rhinoceros and American bison roaming the grasslands of New Haven, while large groups of African Mountain Gorillas now live in its high plateau forests. On Asiana, Asian elephants, giant panda bears, orangutans and tigers can now be seen. What can we expect next from your expeditions to the past, Tina?’’

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‘’Guilty as charged, Governor Ling.’ answered Tina Forster, a slight smile on her face. ‘’I did import from the past large, viable herds of many animal species which had become extinct on Earth thousands of years ago, in order to repair the damage our ancestors did to Earth’s ecosystem. Those herds were first dropped on New Haven, which has plenty of space and vegetation to accommodate them, so that they could have time to naturally multiply. Then, I progressively transported part of those herds of herbivores and groups of primates to either Asiana or Jamieson’s World. Next on my list will be a number of extinct species which previously lived on the Australian continent but which disappeared because of us hundreds of years ago. I am thinking in particular about kangaroos, koalas, emus and wombats.’

‘’Oooh, I love that idea!’’ enthusiastical y exclaimed Agneta Braun, the CEO of the Vesta Corporation and Governor of the planet Vinland, in the Gliese 832 System.

‘’You should open a zoo on New Haven, so that we could all see those past creatures.’’

‘’We have better than zoos, Agneta: we have low-level guided flying tours for tourists who want to see the various animals I imported from the past. You can thus visit our North Pole area and see in the wild woolly mammoths, musk oxen and polar bears.

For those of you who liked the historical documentaries I published to date, you will soon be able to watch authentic scenes from the 1942 Battle of Midway, the desert Battle of Tobruk, the naval Battle of Savo Island and the 1942 failed amphibious raid on Dieppe.

My historical team also plans to go investigate the 1963 assassination of American President John Kennedy in Texas, an event which still attracts many questions from historians. However, the work of my team in the past is very carefully planned and controlled, in order to avoid interfering in any way with recorded history. Any change to history caused by our actions in the past would be nothing less than catastrophic for all of us.’

As excited comments went around the table, Tina noticed that Sylvia Johnson, the President of the North American Union, seemed to be in a downcast mood. She thus decided to go speak with her in private at the end of the meeting, as she suspected that this could be due to the heavy secret she was holding, a secret Tina had communicated to her some time ago.

A bit over two hours later, with Jeanne Mercier having declared the meeting officially over, Tina approached Sylvia Johnson and spoke to her in a near whisper.

‘’Is something wrong, Sylvia?’

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Johnson answered at first with a nod of her head before speaking in a low voice.

‘’Tina, I am afraid of how things wil go in the North American Union after I wil complete my second mandate in a year or so. My push for emigration to Jamieson’s World is encountering strong political opposition, along with vocal nationalistic rhetoric.

Many accuse me of undermining the NAU with my pro-emigration policies, notably by draining away our best minds and people. There are also second thoughts about the NAU having joined the Spacers’ League.’

‘’But Space is the future of Humanity, Sylvia, not our old, polluted and overexploited Earth.’

‘’Call it misplaced nationalistic pride if you want but what I often hear these days are calls for a ‘strong, eternal America’. Unfortunately, those calls are capturing the hearts of a majority of my citizens. I am afraid that my successor as President of the NAU will pul it out of the Spacers’ League and reverse my pro-emigration policies, something that will prevent us from saving more people when that natural disaster will come in 2355, sixteen years from now.’

‘’Have you spoken with Jeanne Mercier about it?’’

‘’Yes, but she told me that there is nothing she can do about that. She also told me that she is against revealing publicly the fact that you explored our future and found out about what is awaiting us in 2355. She believes, rightly in my opinion, that the backlash against you would be very severe and would possibly trigger attacks on you and on New Haven.’

Tina felt discouragement then, as Sylvia’s fears about a backlash were actually very plausible. Could her attempts at trying to save millions in the coming future result in hostility and violence against her cherished world of New Haven and against her ship?

Unsure how to respond to this, she nonetheless patted Sylvia’s shoulder while trying to encourage her.

‘’Maybe your citizens wil regain some sense and elect some forward-thinking successor to take over from you, Sylvia.’’

‘’I don’t have much faith in that, Tina. You should listen to the opinion polls circulating in the NAU about Space emigration and our membership in the Spacers’

League. Stil , I wil do what I can until my time in power is over.’

Sylvia Johnson then walked away, her head low, leaving Tina alone in the corner of the High Council’s Chamber. In fact, that left her alone in the whole room, save for a few stewards busy picking up the used and empty glasses and bottles of water on the

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conference table. When she walked out of the Chamber and reunited with her waiting bodyguard, Stacy Keibler, she did so in a slow pace, her mind furiously trying to figure out how to counter this latest problem. One thing was however clear in her mind: the years to come were going to be both difficult and heart-wrenching.

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CHAPTER 12 – A STEP BACKWARD

11:42 (Washington Time)

Monday, January 22, 2340

The Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.

North American Union, Earth

Jamieson’s World (18 Scorpii c)

‘’...AND I PROMISE YOU THIS, CITIZENS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN

UNION: WE WILL STOP WASTING OUR MONEY, RESOURCES AND TALENTS ON

FAR AWAY WORLDS AMONG THE STARS. INSTEAD, WE WILL CONCENTRATE

ALL OUR EFFORTS AND RESOURCES ON MAKING THIS GREAT LAND EVEN

BETTER AND ON STAYING THE BEST, MOST ADVANCED NATION ON EARTH.

TOMORROW, I WILL TAKE US OUT OF THE SPACERS’ LEAGUE, TO WHICH MY

PREDECESSOR SO UNWISELY ADHERED TO, AND WILL REDIRECT THE

RESOURCES WASTED IN SPACE TO OUR BEAUTIFUL, ETERNAL LAND.’’

Sylvia Johnson, sitting with the other V.I.P. guests at the swearing-in ceremony of her successor, President Jeremy Wade, had to contain her growing anger at the ignorant, short-sighted populist rhetoric Wade was now spewing in his inaugural address from outside the Capitol Building in Washington. Jeremy Wade and his American Renewal Party had won over the presidential candidate from Sylvia’s party only by the thinnest of margins by resorting to populist discourses, bashing her own policy of becoming a member of the Spacers’ League and blaming the NAU’s financial problems on so-called

‘wastage’ spent in Space. Unfortunately, enough citizens had believed Wade’s lies and hyperbole to allow him to be elected as the new President of the North American Union.

As for Sylvia, being term-limited and being forced to retire from politics as of today, she could do nothing now but sit and watch the train wreck she expected soon as a result of the short-sighted policies of Jeremy Wade and of his ARP. To be helpless like this while knowing what was awaiting her country in fifteen years was most infuriating for her but there was little that she could do now. Even if she decided to go public about what she knew of the disaster to come in 2355, most people would probably refuse to believe her and may even accuse her of politically-motivated fear-mongering, further entrenching the ARP’s hold on the NAU citizens. Unfortunately, those ARP policies were already significantly costing the country, by causing a brain drain of the best and brightest, who

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were voting with their feet and emigrating in large numbers to Jamieson’s World, the planet owned by the NAU in the 18 Scorpii star system, some 46.1 light-years from Earth. Now, Sylvia was afraid that Wade was going to starve of funds and resources the young colony, which had been growing steadily for over two years now. From the contacts Sylvia had on Jamieson’s World, she knew that the colonists there were deeply disturbed and worried about Jeremy Wade’s policies and about his promise to make the NAU leave the Spacers’ League. What these colonists would decide to do and how they would react to those ARP policies was still unsure to her. In a way, this situation reminded her of the dark days of 2315, when the central government of Earth had tried to break the attempts at independence of those who were then called ‘Spacers’. Those Spacers, led by a young Captain Tina Forster and her giant cargo ship KOSTROMA, had fought back, eventually winning their independence from Earth in a way resembling the war the American colonists of the 18th Century had fought to gain independence from Great Britain. Wil the colonists on Jamieson’s World have to fight for their new world or would they see their promising new home wither on the vine from lack of resources and of new people due to Wade’s policies? Sylvia sure hoped not.

17:20 (Washington Time)

Wednesday, February 28, 2340

Spectators’ Gallery, Senate Chamber

North American Union Congress Building, Washington D.C.

Reginald King, the Spacers’ League Consul to the NAU, felt bitterness and discouragement as the Speaker of the NAU’s Senate announced the results of the vote just taken on the resolution to leave the Spacers’ League. Out of the 94 states and territories forming the North American Union, each represented by two senators, only 32

senators had voted against the resolution presented by President Wade via the House of Representatives. Those 32 senators who had voted to stay in the Spacers’ League were those representing the thirteen states which had previously been provinces and territories of Canada before that country had joined the United States and Mexico in 2088 to form the North American Union, plus six senators from four ex-Mexican states.

That by itself could cause further shockwaves, as the citizens from those ex-Canadian states were massively opposed to leaving the Spacers’ League, as the latest opinion polls were showing. Unfortunately, President Wade had already dismissed those polls,

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demeaning the opinions of those northern citizens as ‘backward’ and ‘misguided’.

However, King believed that Wade was making a grave mistake by ignoring the northern feelings about his policies. King also believed that this resolution could very well backfire on Wade and the NAU. As he got up from his seat to leave after the counting of the vote, another spectator, a well-known political media commentator from Mississippi, taunted him with an arrogant smile.

‘’Have a nice day while stil in Washington, King.’

King threw him a poisoned look but didn’t reply verbally, then ignored that idiot while walking out of the Senate.

09:09 (Vancouver Time)

Tuesday, March 05, 2340

Reception center, Enos Lake Log Cabins Resort

Enos Lake, Vancouver Island, North American West Coast Janet Forster only had half of her mind on her administrative work, as she was also listening with one ear to a regional video news channel broadcasted on the large video display unit of her resort’s reception lounge. Since President Wade had signed at the end of February an act of Congress terminating the membership of the NAU in the Spacers’ League, things had been quite agitated in the northern states of the country, which had once been Canadian provinces or territories. A strong majority of the citizens of those thirteen northern states had in fact opposed that act and had been quite vocal about it. The governors of eleven of those states had then jointly decided to conduct a popular electronic referendum on the question, while the governors of two states, Alberta and Saskatchewan, had refused to conduct such a referendum. The results of those referendums had been published yesterday and had immediately raised a political storm, as an average of 78 percent of the citizens of those eleven states had stated that they wished to stay as citizens of the Spacers’ League and would thus be ready to secede from the NAU. The verbal response from Washington to those results had been swift and categoric, with President Wade declaring that any secession of a state from the NAU would amount to insurrection and would be treated as such. Now, both the citizens and the local governments of those eleven states were wondering if President Wade was just bluffing or if he would really be ready to use force to keep them in the NAU.

Added to Janet’s worries about that was the new NAU policy concerning the institution of

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a visa requirement for any Spacers’ League citizen wishing to enter the NAU. That new visa requirement, along with the hostile rants from President Wade towards the Spacers’

League, was already impacting on her resort’s customership, with the occupancy rate for her log cabins being much lower than usual for a month of April.

Janet was about finished with her reservations list work when the entrance of four men and one woman made her look up from her laptop computer screen. Her welcoming smile then quickly faded as she saw that the five newcomers wore the gray uniforms of the NAU Federal Marshals Service and were armed with both pistols and rifles. Getting up from her stool, set behind the reception counter, Janet greeted the newcomers in a polite tone as the most senior agent, a sergeant, walked to her counter.

‘’Good morning, lady and gentlemen! What could I do for you today?’’

‘’We are here to check that the new visa requirements for Spacers’ League citizens is being respected. Do you presently have Spacers’ League citizens in your resort?’’

‘’Yes! In fact, most of my customers are Spacers’ League citizens on vacation.

Our vast open wilderness and natural vistas are well appreciated by crewmembers of starships orbiting Earth.’

‘’Do those customers hold legal tourist visas for the NAU, miss?’’

‘’Uh, I frankly don’t know, mister. The customers presently staying at my resort arrived before the institution of this new visa requirement and I know that at least four of them have gone four days ago on a camping trip and have not returned yet. There was thus no way for them to get visas or even to know about that requirement.’

‘’Let us judge about that, miss.’ replied the agent in a barely polite tone. ‘’We wil also need to speak with the owner of this resort, a Janet Forster.’

‘’That’s me, mister.’ answered Janet, suddenly becoming really nervous. ‘’Why do you want to talk with me?’

‘’You have family ties with a starship captain named Tina Forster, correct?’

‘’Uh, yes: she’s my cousin. What about her?’’

‘’Is she presently in this resort, miss? We know that her ship is in Earth orbit.’

‘’No, she is not, but a family of four from the NOSTROMO is on vacation here.’’

‘’Then, we will need to go check them for valid visas, miss. Which cabin are they occupying?’’

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‘’They rented Cabin Number Five but they wouldn’t be there this morning, mister: they are the people who went camping deep in the forest four days ago and they haven’t returned yet. You are not going to give them a hard time, I hope: they have two young children with them and they may stil not know about this visa requirement.’

‘’We will see, miss. I wil now need a list of all the Spacers’ League citizens present in your resort, along with the number of their log cabins and their wrist phone numbers.’

Not liking at all where this was going, Janet gave a warning look at the federal agent.

‘’Have you coordinated this visit with our local constabulary station, mister?

Those people have committed no crimes and do have legal rights.’

‘’Customs and immigration are a federal jurisdiction, not a state jurisdiction, miss.

I want to see your list of customers, now!’

Hiding her mounting anger, Janet had no choice but to call up on her computer her list of customers and then turn her laptop around to let the agent look at it.

‘’Here you go, mister.’

The marshal didn’t even utter a ‘thank you’ before reviewing the list, noting down a few names and the wrist phone numbers used by those persons, along with their log cabin numbers. Once he was done, the agent looked back at Janet, his expression severe.

‘’From now on, Miss Forster, you wil ensure that all your customers who are from the Spacers’ League hold a valid visitor’s visa. If you don’t do that, you will expose yourself to arrest, for violating the NAU Customs and Immigration Act.’

‘’This is totally unwarranted, mister. The citizens of our state of British Columbia, like those from ten other states, just voted via a referendum to stay in the Spacers’

League. I will have to put a legal protest with my local constabulary service about this harassment of my customers.’’

‘’I don’t give a damn about your state referendum, miss. As for your constabulary service, they will have to stand aside and let us do our work here.’

Before Janet could reply to that arrogant response by the federal agent, the entrance door was opened and two adults and two children entered the reception lounge. They were all dressed in warm Winter clothes and both adults and the older child, a preteen girl of about seven or eight, carried backpacks, while a young toddler child was carried in a chest pack worn by the woman, who was fairly small but solidly built. Janet’s heart jumped in her chest when she recognized the four newcomers, who stopped at the sight

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of the five armed federal agents. She then did her best to warn them and defuse a potential misunderstanding.

‘’Pieter, Jehanne, those officers from the NAU Federal Marshals Service are here to check the visas of the Spacers’ League citizens presently at the resort.’

‘’Visas? What visas?’ asked a confused Pieter Nordlung. The senior federal agent answered that in a less than friendly tone.

‘’The visitor’s visa that is now required from Spacers’ League citizens entering the North American Union, mister. That visa requirement was instituted on the First of March, by order from President Wade.’

‘’But we went on a camping trip early that day, deep in the woods. We didn’t hear about that, Sergeant.’

‘’Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, mister. I will need to see your passports, or at the least some identity papers if you don’t have passports with you.’

‘’We didn’t bring passports when coming down from our ship: the NAU was stil part of the Spacers’ League at that time. We can however show us electronic identity cards.’

‘’Those wil do, mister.’

The agent then took the four electronic cards Pieter presented to him and quickly examined them. However, that agent suddenly stiffened as he read the card handed by Jehanne de Domrémy.

‘’WATCH OUT! SHE’S A SECURITY ANDROID!’

While Jehanne didn’t apparently react to that except for looking questioningly at the federal agent, she switched on at once her electromagnetic shield unit and sent an encrypted digital short warning message up to the NOSTROMO. At the same time, she pulled little Frida closer to her while stepping near Pieter, in order to include them both inside the protective bubble of her force shield. Thankfully, the NAU agents were armed with classic firearms instead of disintegrator weapons and her force shield was proof against bullets. As for the five federal agents, they all unholstered their pistols at once and pointed them at her.

‘’And why would you be worried by me being a security android, Sergeant? I am a law officer like you and the Spacers’ League is not at war with the North American Union, unless of course you want to start a war by shooting at us without justification.

Now, we simply couldn’t and didn’t know about your new visa requirement. You would

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just have to issue us visas now that we are back from the woods and then everything would be fine, Sergeant.’

‘’If you have weapons with you, then I want you to put them down on the floor, slowly.’

Little Frida Thorund, scared by the guns pointed at her family, looked up at Jehanne.

‘’Mommy, why do they threaten us?’

‘’They don’t have valid reasons to do so, Frida. Let me handle this peacefully.’

said Jehanne before looking back at the senior federal agent. ‘’I wil now ask you to stop overreacting and to stop pointing guns at my family, Sergeant. Then, you can issue us visas to all four of us and to the other customers of this resort who are from the Spacers’

League.’

‘’Your status as a law officer is no longer recognized in the NAU, miss, so don’t try to order us around.’

Jehanne shook her head slowly at the obtuseness of the man’s reaction, at the same time as she got an electronic answer back directly from SPIRIT.

‘’You know what, Sergeant? Your present attitude reminds me of the racist attitude and conduct of 20th Century American Southern policemen towards people of color. We are however in the 24th Century, so I am not prepared to meekly allow my family to be mishandled or mistreated by you. Know that my ship, the NOSTROMO, has been warned about this situation and is now alerting the nearest British Columbia Constabulary station about your actions. I thus strongly suggest that you holster your weapons and leave.’’

‘’You are bluffing, miss. As I said before, you have no authority here and you will not order us around.’

While still fixing the federal agents, Jehanne spoke softly to Pieter.

‘’Pieter, take the kids with you and return to our cabin: I will handle this.’

‘’DON’T MOVE!’ shouted at once the federal agent. Jehanne ignored him and took little Nehiyawak from his chest carriage and handed him to Pieter while continuing to stare at the sergeant.

‘’Sergeant, your moves and words are being recorded and will be used in a court of law if you continue to threaten my family. Your choice!’’

The female agent in the group of five marshals, a corporal, then gave a worried look at her superior.

‘’Sergeant, this isn’t worth it. Let’s simply issue them visas and be done with it.’

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The NCO hesitated for a moment before finally lowering slowly his pistol and holster it.

‘’Alright! We wil issue you visas...this time. Next time, if you don’t get visas in advance, you wil be arrested for il egally entering the NAU.’

‘’Blah, blah, blah! You may find out soon enough that your own authority will be worth little here, Sergeant.’

‘’Who the fuck are you to talk to me like this?’’

‘’I am Tribune Jehanne de Domrémy, Commander of the First Security Legion of New Haven, and I fought repeatedly against the Space Predators, so don’t presume too much about your capabilities or about your actual authority in the State of British Columbia.’’

The five federal agents froze on hearing her rank and title, suddenly becoming quite nervous: the reputation of Jehanne as a deadly fighter was not confined to the worlds of the Spacers’ League, as her combat prowess and that of her security androids had been widely advertised on Earth through various news bulletins during the war with the Space Predators. Now realizing what kind of opponent he was facing, the federal NCO

reluctantly added electronic visas to the family’s electronic identity cards, then left with his four subalterns while avoiding to look at Jehanne. Janet Forster, who had held her breath during the verbal confrontation, let air out once the entrance door closed behind the agents.

‘’Weuw! I was afraid for a moment that these arrogant idiots would start shooting, Jehanne.’

‘’Part of my training and experience taught me the value of evaluating the resolve of potential adversaries, Janet. That guy was mostly huff and puff and he knew that he was on a slippery legal slope. Now that they are gone, I am afraid that our citizens will have to leave your resort in order to avoid more threats like this. Those idiots in Washington clearly don’t understand what they have started. I am sorry to ruin your business like this but I can’t say how far these idiots wil go, or what may happen next. I will talk with Tina once back on the NOSTROMO and ask her to provide you with a monetary compensation for the loss of business this will cause you. She may want in turn to talk with you in private.’

‘’Well, you can also tell Tina that those bozos specifically asked me if she was here, so they may have come to my resort partly to try to get her.’

‘’I wil certainly inform her of that, Janet. Washington is playing a very dangerous and disturbing game here and it may well blow back in President Wade’s face.’’

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10:14 (Universal Time)

Friday, March 08, 2340

High Council Chamber, Spacers’ League government complex City of New Dawn, Providence (Alpha Centauri Bd)

‘’Decidedly, these emergency meetings of the High Council are getting a bit too frequent to my taste, Tina.’ remarked Vladimir Gasparov as he took his seat facing Tina Forster’s chair around the long conference table. ‘’Couldn’t our scientists find a way to transmit conversations in real time between star systems?’’

‘’I’m afraid that we are not going to see that happen in a very, very long time, if ever, Vladimir. Count yourself lucky that we managed to find a way to travel quickly between the stars.’

Looking briefly at the eleven men and women from Earth who had come in Tina’s private yacht and were now taking seats around the table, Gasparov then returned his attention to Tina.

‘’What do you know about the reasons for those representatives of the northern states of the North American Union to ask for an emergency meeting of the High Council?’’

‘’Well, they are stil technically citizens of the Spacers’ League, like the citizens of their states, and their citizens voted overwhelmingly in a referendum held four days ago to stay in the Spacers’ League, instead of following the rest of the North American Union into leaving us. The governor of Jamieson’s World, who also came to this meeting, wishes as well to stay in the Spacers’ League and is refusing orders from President Wade to cut all links with us.’

‘’That Wade sounds to me like a first-class asshole, Tina.’

‘’That’s because he IS a first-class flaming asshole, Vladimir. He is now refusing to accept to let go his eleven northern, ex-Canadian states, along with Jamieson’s World, even though the historic United States was formed after declaring its independence from the British Empire. Quite ironic, isn’t it?’’

‘’Yeah! It is also a most stupid attitude on his part.’

‘’Who said that ignorant bigots had to be intelligent?’’

‘’Touché!’

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Jeanne Mercier then banged her gavel two times to call for silence.

‘’I now declare this emergency session of the High Council open. Ladies and gentlemen, I officially received yesterday a call for help from the governors of eleven states and territories of the North American Union, plus one from the governor of Jamieson’s World, in the 18 Scorpii System. The people of those twelve states, territories and planet all voted via referendum to stay as citizens of the Spacers’ League, rather than follow the rest of the NAU states into cancelling their membership in our alliance. I will now show on the screens the official results of those referendums, conducted electronically four days ago.’

All eyes went to the big electronic display screens hooked to the four walls of the chamber, with Jeanne Mercier then speaking further.

‘’As you can see, the results of those referendums were decisive, averaging a whopping 78 percent in favor of remaining with the Spacers’ League, with the lowest approval rate being 65 percent and with the highest approval rate, in the State of Quebec, being 87 percent. Of the northern states which once formed Canada, only Alberta and Saskatchewan, states where the population is in general markedly more conservative than the others, voted by a slim majority to follow Washington into leaving the Spacers’ League. As for Jamieson’s World, they voted to stay with us with a whopping 95 percent majority. Now, as you can see on the map visible on our screens, those eleven states cover a huge area of North America nearly equal in size to the rest of the NAU. They also hold a large proportion of the mineral, agricultural and fishing resources of the NAU, which helps explain why President Wade is so vehemently opposed to losing them. Now, I want to emphasize that the NAU voluntarily joined the Spacers League a bit over two years ago and that its citizens were thus all Spacers’

League citizens until February 29 of this year, when President Wade signed his so-called ‘NAU Independence Act’. However, mere days after he signed that act, eleven of his states, along with the citizens of Jamieson’s World, stated via referendum that they wanted to continue being citizens of the Spacers’ League. In response to those referendums, President Wade declared their results to be null and void and that he would consider any attempt by those northern states to stay with us as an illegal act of secession. Then, yesterday, the governors of those northern states and of Jamieson’s World sent representatives to Providence with a plea for our protection against any forceful move by Washington to stop them from leaving the NAU. Our duty on this matter is now clear, ladies and gentlemen: we will support and defend the rights of the

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citizens from those states and planet who wish to stay as citizens of the Spacers’

League. Yes, Agneta?’

Having raised her hand to ask to speak, Agneta Braun, the CEO of the Vesta Corporation and one of the members of the High Council, cleared her throat before asking a question.

‘’What are the present military capabilities of the NAU, including its Space forces, which could try to subdue those eleven states and Jamieson’s World? Are there any signs of military preparations made by Washington in order to enter by force these states and the 18 Scorpii System?’’

‘’A good and pertinent question indeed. You must understand that the NAU of this century is nowhere near what the United States of the 21st Century was as a dominating military power. The American military was drastically cut at the end of the 21st Century, leaving it with only police forces, a small navy and a small air force to defend its territory, while its past interventionist international policies became a thing of the past. All that however backfired on the NAU when it found itself nearly powerless to repulse the invasion by the thugs of the Khan Regime in 2316. Our nascent Spacers’

League, led by Tina Forster and her KOSTROMA, then had to rescue the NAU citizens from the thugs of the Southern Federation. That costly lesson then convinced the NAU

to rebuild at least part of its past military machine after the conclusion of the 2315

Uprising. However, even that effort was what I would qualify as ‘minimalist’ and the NAU

never approached the military might of the old United States. As of today, the NAU has on Earth a force of about 50,000 active ground troops supplemented by local, regional and federal police forces and supported by a small Coast Guard force and a small aerospace force consisting of one squadron of light starfighters and three squadrons of intra-atmospheric fighter-bombers. A second squadron of light starfighters, along with a Space cargo detachment, was being formed and trained under our aegis in order to protect the 18 Scorpii System, but President Wade ordered that this joint training program be terminated the same day he signed his NAU Independence Act.

Unfortunately, even in view of this rather meagre NAU military capacity, the eleven northern states which voted to stay with us have only their local state police forces at their disposal to resist any forceful move against them by NAU military units. Even those state police forces are not completely reliable, as part of their police leadership was named by Washington. The biggest worry of the governors of those states and of the Governor of Jamieson’s World is that some of their own police forces may help NAU

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federal forces take control of their government centers and arrest them for quote sedition unquote. When I got late yesterday the call for help from those governors who wish to stay on as citizens of the Spacers’ League, I sent a request to the NOSTROMO, which is presently in low Earth orbit, asking Tina Forster if she could urgently provide at least some protection to these state government representatives. Thankfully, Tina responded in the affirmative and sent down at once part of her security android force. Tina, you may now brief us on what you sent down to those eleven states.’’

‘’Thank you, Madam Chairwoman! Ladies and gentlemen of the High Council, when I receive the request for help from Chairwoman Mercier, I had at the time half of my android security force aboard the NOSTROMO, counting a total of 2,520 security androids and 48 armored MRGS assault vehicles. I then sent down three of the four cohorts based aboard my ship, which count 1,860 androids and 36 MRGS, distributing them among the northern local government centers, air and port of entries and their border crossing points. One squadron of my heavy starfighters based aboard the NOSTROMO is on combat standby, ready to intervene if NAU fighter-bombers attack those northern states, while my NOSTROMO will act as an ultimate instrument of deterrence against any move in force by federal NAU forces.’

Toru Tomonaga, the CEO of the Ceres Consortium, shook his left hand on hearing her last sentence.

‘’Ouch! President Wade would be truly foolish to provoke a reaction from your mighty NOSTROMO, Tina. Your ship destroyed by itself over 75 percent of all Space Predator ships during our dark days, on top of destroying their home world.’

‘’Well, I do hope that my NOSTROMO wil not have to use its main guns during this crisis, Toru. Finally, I had one cohort and one heavy starfighter squadron based on New Haven move right away to Jamieson’s World, where it took protective positions on and around the planet. The one thing I haven’t done yet is to warn President Wade about doing any aggressive move against his northern states or against Jamieson’s World. I wil leave that task to Chairwoman Mercier.’

00:23 (Vancouver Time)

Saturday, March 09, 2340

Vancouver Vertiport, Downtown Vancouver

State of British Columbia, North America

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Captain Jeff Brolins, of the NAU Aerospace Forces, had just landed at the vertical on the main tarmac of the Vancouver Vertiport, ignoring the calls by the local control tower refusing him the right to land, and was about to signal via intercom the 130

airborne troopers and their anti-gravity sleds to disembark when he froze, while he felt his hair on his head rise: a big, wedge-shaped vehicle topped up by a large turret had just silently flown from its hiding place behind a civilian airliner and had stopped a mere fifty meters in front of his light cargo ship. The scary muzzle of what looked like a heavy disintegrator cannon was now pointed directly at his cockpit area. He was finally able to speak and give a warning to the commander of the paratrooper unit he was carrying on this assault mission.

‘’ALERT! AN ARMORED VEHICLE IS NOW FIFTY METERS IN FRONT OF

OUR CARGO SHIP AND POINTING ITS CANNON AT US.’

In the cargo bay, Major John Stoner was watching the loadmaster open the rear access ramp when he got that warning.

‘’SHIT! SOMEONE WAS WAITING FOR US, MEN. RUN OUT AND SPREAD

OUT ONCE OUT OF THIS SHIP.’

Stoner then took the safety off his light disintegrator rifle and approached the top of the access ramp, which was now half opened. Contrary to the NAU police forces, which were still armed with conventional firearms, his unit and other army units considered as elite elements were armed with disintegrator rifles and pistols. He had thus been confident that his unit would easily accomplish its mission, which was to take the British State Columbia Capitol Building, situated 300 meters from the vertiport, along with the local Governor’s official residence. However, Stoner had to brake on the spot when he saw that a big vehicle mounting an equally big gun had parked itself fifty meters from the tail of the cargo ship. He could also see forty silhouettes in dark armored suits running and then stopping to form a wide semi-circle centered on the tail of his cargo ship while pointing their weapons at the cargo hold. Those opponents appeared to be well disciplined and trained, staying well separated from each other while being careful not to block the line of sight of the vehicle-mounted gun.

‘’HOLD ON, MEN! THE ENEMY SET A TRAP FOR US AND IS BLOCKING

OUR WAY OUT!’’

Stoner then saw one of the dark silhouettes walk calmly towards the access ramp, its weapon slung from one shoulder.

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‘’SOMEONE IS COMING FORWARD TO SPEAK WITH ME. HOLD YOUR FIRE

UNLESS I SAY OTHERWISE.’

Slinging his own weapon, the paratroop officer then walked down the ramp, stopping at its feet and waiting for his opponent to join him. He was soon able thanks to the exterior lights of the vertiport to see that his opponent was actually a woman, a tall and very beautiful one at that. He was also able to recognize her uniform and battle gear and swore to himself: it was a security android of the New Haven Security Forces. His unit was thus facing the deadliest and most battle-hardened force known on Earth and in Space. His apprehension then turned to surprise and disbelief when he was able to clearly distinguish the beautiful young blonde now stopping three paces from him.

‘’Taylor Swift? Is that really you? Aren’t you a star singer?’’

The blonde smiled at his astonishment.

‘’Yes, it’s me and I am a singer...on my free time, when I am not fil ing my security duties as a decurion. However, today, I am here to protect Spacers’ League citizens from a NAU government bent on ignoring their collective wish to stay as our citizens. You and your troopers now have a choice: you either take off now and fly back south of the border or you all die in the following minute. Decide quickly, Major.’

Stoner didn’t have to think long before answering her, as his choice of options was indeed very limited. His men were still bunched inside the cargo hold of the light cargo ship and one burst of that heavy disintegrator gun pointed at the hold would vaporize all of his men in an instant.

‘’Alright, we wil go.’’

‘’Good choice! Tell your pilot that any deviation on his flight path from straight South wil result in us destroying his ship...and your men.’

The tall blonde then saluted him militarily, making Stoner reluctantly return her salute before he climbed up the cargo ramp and spoke to his men.

‘’TAKE BACK YOUR SEATS: WE ARE LEAVING. I AM NOW GOING TO

SPEAK WITH OUR PILOT.’

Some of his men did grumble at that but he ignored them and quickly walked to the cockpit, where he stopped between the seats of the pilot and copilot. Jeff Brolins looked up from his seat, clearly worried.

‘’So, what do we do now, Major?’’

‘’We take off and fly South. Those two armored vehicles can vaporize us all in an instant.’

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‘’Alright! Carlos, close the access ramp: we are leaving.’

Less than thirty seconds later, the light cargo ship was taking off silently at the vertical, climbing for a moment before turning towards the South and overflying at the same time the waters of Vancouver Harbor. As Brolins was about to accelerate while heading South, Stoner patted his right shoulder.

‘’Go very low and then make a wide turn to the right: we are returning to Vancouver. Instead of going out at the vertiport, we will jump directly over the Capitol Building.’

Brolins gave him a shocked look but Stoner cut him off with four words.

‘’That’s an order, Captain. I will now go brief my men about this.’’

His heart heavy and doubting the sanity of that order, Brolins nonetheless flew his unarmed cargo ship down to near water level and started to perform a very large half-turn to the right. Maybe, by flying past Vancouver while well away from the coast, he would then be able to approach the city from the direction of the nearby mountains, thus making his approach difficult to detect.

On the heavy starfighter SHOOTING STAR, the maneuver by the NAU light cargo ship was detected nearly at once, prompting its pilot, Pieter Nordling, to start diving on it. What he now had to do was not to his liking: that cargo ship was unarmed and there were over a hundred men in it, men who were going to die very soon.

However, the NAU ship and troopers had been clearly warned, yet had decided to ignore that warning and were ready to kil Spacers’ League citizens as part of their mission.

The light cargo ship was still skimming the surface of the sea, heading North in order to bypass Vancouver before turning towards the coastal mountain range, when Pieter opened fire with his four heavy disintegrator cannons. Half a second of firing was enough to bracket the cargo ship and then hit it. Half of the cargo ship was vaporized in a blue flash of light, with its remaining pieces then splashing into the ocean. Pieter looked down with sadness at the spot of the sinking while performing a wide turn to return on watch station.

‘’I hope that not too many more people will die because of the arrogance and stupidity of those NAU politicians.’

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09:11 (Washington Time)

Situation Room, The White House

Washington, D.C., North American Union

When President Jeremy Wade showed up in the Situation Room, in the basement of the White House’s West Wing, he found his military chief of staff, General Mark Sternberger, both distraught and seething with anger. The military man, in a most unusual display of lack of decorum, got up from his chair at once, not as a mark of respect but to then shout at Wade.

‘’You ordered a military operation against those rebel northern states, sending my men into combat, and you didn’t even bother to show here until you finished eating your breakfast, Mister President?’’

‘’Now, watch your tone of voice, General. Your soldiers went to get some politicians protected only by a few police officers. There was no need for me to stay here for such a benign task.’

‘’A benign task? For your info, Operation Iron Fist has turned into a complete disaster, Mister President, and 1,946 of my men and women are now dead or missing in action! Combat androids of the New Haven Security Forces were waiting for our troopers and either made them turn around or destroyed them when our people refused to obey their warnings.’

Shocked by those words, Wade stopped on the spot and stared with dismay at Sternberger.

‘’Combat androids? When did they arrive in our northern states?’’

‘’I don’t know, Mister President. What is important is the fact that the Spacers’

League has decided to protect those rebel states by sending their best combat units there. As for trying again to take control of those rebel states, forget it: we are simply not in the same class militarily.’

‘’How many of those combat androids are in our rebel states, General?’’

‘’A few thousands at the least, supported by heavy armored combat vehicles and heavy starfighters, the likes of which we can only dream of possessing.’’

Wade heavily sat down in his presidential chair, badly shaken by that information.

‘’And the ships and troops we sent to Jamieson’s World?’

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‘’They came back barely minutes ago, Mister President. They encountered a full squadron of heavy starfighters of the Spacers’ League when they approached the planet and correctly assessed that they stood no chance of breaking through those starfighters, so they turned around and returned to Earth. The odds for us to gain control of that planet are now even less than our odds for retaking those rebel northern states.’’

Wade’s dismay then turned quickly into anger and rage and he banged his fist on the conference table.

‘’DAMN SPACERS! THESE TERRITORIES BELONG TO US, NOT TO THEM!’

General Sternberger and the three other members of the National Security Council present in the Situation Room then eyed their raging president with what could politely be described as ‘skepticism’. Wade’s National Security Adviser then spoke to him in a measured tone.

‘’Mister President, we may think so but we would have only slight chances to win this argument in front of the International Court if we presented this dispute to it. The Spacers’ League can and will argue then that it was simply defending Spacers’ League citizens from military attacks by us on their regional leaders.’

‘’So, what do you propose that we do now, Ray?’’

‘’We talk instead of fighting, Mister President. The giant armed cargo ship NOSTROMO, from where those androids most probably came from, is presently in Earth orbit, while its captain and owner, Tina Forster, is most probably aboard it. Forster also happens to be a member of the Spacers’ League’s High Council, so would be the logical person to first talk with.’’

Wade took a few seconds to swallow his pride before nodding his head once.

‘’Alright, call that Tina Forster. Can you arrange that call from here?’

‘’Easily, Mister President. Just give me a few seconds.’

As the NSA worked on that connection, Sternberger used that time to remind his president about a few things.

‘’Mister President, I must advise you not to underestimate this Tina Forster, or her ship. This woman has been engaged in Space combat and tactics for 25 years now and is widely acknowledged to be a master tactician and strategist when it comes to war in Space and ship handling in combat. As for her ship, the NOSTROMO, it is by far the most powerful armed ship in the whole of Humanity and has defeated by itself whole fleets of Space Predators’ asteroid ships. We just can’t afford to underestimate that woman or her ship, sir.’

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Before Wade could reply to that, his NSA spoke up.

‘’I have Captain Forster on the line, Mister President. She’s on Line Two.’’

Switching on the computer of his station and selecting that communication channel, Wade then was able to look at a mature woman with medium-length brown hair, gray eyes and a resolute jaw. She in turn looked at him with a cold, hostile expression which renewed his anger.

‘’Captain Forster, did you send the combat robots who killed nearly 2,000 of my soldiers as they tried to take back control of eleven rebellious northern states?’

‘’First off, Mister President, my security androids are no mere robots: they are intelligent, sentient beings with individual personalities and full Spacers’ League citizen status. Second, they were sent to your northern states in order to protect Spacers’

League citizens from an unprovoked attack by NAU federal forces. They were acting on orders from Chairwoman Jeanne Mercier, after she received a request for protection from Spacers’ League local government officials in those states, which recently held referendums which showed that a large majority of their citizens wanted to stay on as Spacers’ League citizens. You were the one who started this whole thing by playing crass populist politics in order to win the NAU presidential elections and by saying that you would unilaterally pul the NAU out of the Spacers’ League. You ignored the popular opinion of those northern states and of the colonists on Jamieson’s World, then tried to subdue them by force, launching a surprise night attack against them. Well, you just lost those states and the 18 Scorpii System for good, as they now consider themselves independent from NAU rule and have asked the High Council of the Spacers’ League for membership status, a request that was granted to them by the High Council. They will now be respectively known as ‘Western Canada’, ‘Eastern Canada’ and ‘Jamieson’s World’. Spacers’ League forces wil thus remain in place to defend them from any further attack by NAU federal forces. I thus strongly suggest that you don’t try to pull another stupid stunt like the one you tried last night, Mister President. Oh, by the way, the people crewing the Las Americas Orbital Space Terminal have also asked for our protection, as they have no wish to be subjected to your ignorant and short-sighted rule.

Instead, they will be administered jointly by the authorities in Western and Eastern Canada. Don’t be surprised either if your demonstration of disrespect towards your northern states will eventually convince the states of Alberta and Saskatchewan to change horses and join up with Western and Eastern Canada. You don’t want to waste money and resources into Space ventures, you said? Well, you will now be able to be

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free from such expenditures but, in turn, you won’t be able to waste the potential of those people and installations. Whether you like it or not, the future is in Space, not on our old, overexploited Earth. The leaders of the ASEAN have understood that and are now investing heavily in Space. I suggest that you abandon your present prejudices about Space expansion and start respecting the will of your citizens who wished to keep their Spacers’ League citizenship. That is all for me, Mister President.’

Tina Forster then abruptly cut the communication link, something that infuriated Wade.

‘’THE ARROGANCE OF THAT WOMAN! General Sternberger, I want you to plan and prepare an operation to retake our northern states. Use all of our available military means for that.’

‘’No!’’

Wade, taken by surprise by that response, gave a shocked look at his military chief of staff.

‘’What do you mean, no? That was an order, not a simple wish.’’

‘’What your ‘order’ was to me was pure, foolish wishful thinking, Mister President.

Since you seem to refuse to look reality in the face, I now have no choice but to submit my resignation as Chief of Staff of our military forces.’’

Wade was still swallowing that hard pill when his national security advisor also got up from his seat and started putting back his files in his secure briefcase.

‘’Ray, what are you doing?’’

‘’I am doing the only sensible thing left to me: I am resigning my post as National Security Advisor, Mister President. There is no point for me to be staying on if you are not ready to listen to my advice and that of General Sternberger. Goodbye, Mister President.’

Wade could only look on, devastated, as all of the other four men present in the Situation Room left without a further look at him.

14:35 (Universal Time)

Friday, April 26, 2340

Small Craft Hangar Complex, A.M.S. NOSTROMO

In low Earth orbit, Solar System

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Tina gave a last hug to Sylvia Johnson at the foot of the access ramp of the light shuttle ready to fly her down to Quebec City, the new capital of a reconstituted Canadian Federation.

‘’Good luck as the first Canadian Prime Minister to be in power in 252 years, Sylvia. Canada sure can use your political acumen and common-sense judgment right now.’

‘’Well, at least I wil not have to deal with that Wade idiot, now that the Congress has impeached him for abuse of power. Unfortunately, the fact that I already completed two full terms as President of the NAU precluded me from returning to Washington to take his place.’

‘’Let’s hope that his successor will be a more intelligent and perceptive leader than Wade. Be assured that the Spacers’ League wil support to the utmost Canada as one of its newer members during the coming years.’

The words ‘coming years’ then triggered fresh worries in Sylvia’s mind.

‘’What will we do about this incoming natural disaster in 2355, Tina? Whatever we do, the coastal area of British Columbia will still be utterly destroyed then, while the Prairies will see its agriculture smothered by volcanic ash.’

Tina lowered her head for a moment at that question.

‘’We don’t know yet, Sylvia. Logically, we should inform the public of this future disaster but that would most probably start a planet-wide panic that could cause even more damage than the tsunami and eruption themselves. The best we can do now, while our scientists study that problem, is to encourage a high rate of emigration to Jamieson’s World and to Asiana. Unfortunately, the expiry date for our old Earth is coming and we will have to deal with it as best we can. In the meantime, lead the new Canada and prepare it discretely as best you can.’

‘’I wil , Tina! Thank you for your friendship and support.’

Both women again exchanged hugs and kisses on the cheeks before Sylvia Johnson climbed the access ramp of her shuttle. Tina then watched as the shuttle slowly flew out of its individual hangar in order to transit through the airlock systems of the complex.

With the armored doors of the hangar now closing back, Tina started walking out of it to return to her ship’s bridge, her heart heavy: the next 25 years were going to be like a long purgatory for her, as North America and Earth were facing widespread destruction and death in the not so far future.

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