Trouser Travails - Chapter 6
"... if you keep most of your marbles intact, you can add a note of wisdom to the coming generation."
- Clint Eastwood
The signal had certainly been brief. It was also certain that the signal was an unauthorized signal, and that piqued her curiosity. She was new here, but if she wasn't mistaken, the signal had come from the direction of the Amish farmsteads. Even more interesting was the fact that it did not follow the conventions of the current communication channels. Very curious, given historic Amish aversion to all things modern, including communication devices. It had been brief enough to not be able to be traced, and long enough for information to have been passed. What kind of information? She wondered about that. Who would need to communicate with the Amish farmers, and for what reason?
Local, Central North American Policewoman, Nemea Blake, drummed her fingers against the top of the desk, a habit she had developed early on when thinking hard. It was an automatic motion and it didn't register on her that she was doing it. The drumming tended to drive other people around her crazy, and so she did her best work alone. Which was one reason, of many, for why her superiors had placed her here, on the backside of nowhere, to monitor a people who never put a foot wrong, at least not in public. Therefore, she was bored beyond belief, so this was an intriguing project to concentrate her talents on.
No triangulation was possible, but she did have a heading, and a general area. She made a decision that was within her purview. Visiting the farmsteads would give her something useful to do, at least she wouldn't be bored out of her mind while doing her "official visits". She packed her day bag, set to leave out of the office she had been given in a rundown, ancient office building, in what had originally been a place called Harrisburg. She took her monitoring device and mini-comp with her. If the signal came through again, and she was in the area of the receptor, she would have it, and the answers to her questions.
Nemea climbed aboard her flyer, plugged in her monitoring equipment, and set off in the early afternoon light towards the historic Lancaster area. The land of horses and buggies, long verdant stretches of farmland, and an odd people left over from the sixteenth century. They were never all that populous, she thought, but since the occupation, had begun to spread out on the lands left behind by those long gone in the terrible Illumidas war. Their influence was now strangely magnified in that vacuum. Odd that a backwards culture would flourish, after the more advanced world had perished, she thought.
She flew low over the beautiful lands, ripe with golden wheat, green soybeans, tasseled corn, watermelons, vine ripe-tomatoes and burgeoning peach orchards. The stress of being forgotten in a backwater post left her as she travelled. She marveled at the recovery of the land. And at the quickness of it.
Rumor had it that the Pirate Harlock had "magically" healed the entire Earth with a talisman from some alien "Goddess". Yeah, she thought with amusement, and he stands ten feet tall, carries a magic sword, and comes whenever Earth is in her hour of need. She smiled grimly. The legends around that guy just grew and grew. He was an Outlaw, for heaven's sake, and outlaws didn't do anything to help anyone other than themselves.
Below, farmers wearing woven straw hats, looked up from their plows and harvesting wagons, to see another "English" flyer going overhead to somewhere else. They did not particularly mind those comings and goings, so long as they did not impinge on their own proper, and God-given work. They did note it was an official police flyer, and wondered for a brief moment on the nature of its' mission, headed into the heart of their domain. They shook their bearded heads. It was not their concern, and they went back to their work. They would each tell their Bishop about it later, for it was good for all to be informed that the "English" were taking an interest in them again.
Oddly, this method of verbal communication would send the news around far faster than anyone would expect, for when the Amish Bishops held conclave, many things were passed on and discussed. The news of it would eventually spread to all of the farms, and Amish run enterprises. It would thus also arrive at a farm near Bird-in-Hand, where the Schulte's lived and worked their lands. When would the news arrive, and when would their guest arrive?
The vagaries of luck and chance would collide again, as Harlock always had been and always would be, a magnet and lynch pin where troubles were concerned. It was, after all, the cost of his fate.
OOOOOOOOOO
Harlock awoke from his slumber aboard the asteroid based space station, disguised as an uninteresting rock. His shoulder and chest were finally beginning to feel better. The medicines were helping him. He was nestled on a plush couch in his quarters there, wrapped snuggly in an afghan, that his Grandmother had made years before when he was a boy.
He smiled gently as he remembered her busy fingers, deftly working with the knitting needles, clicking industriously together in the evening, as she sat in her favorite chair by the fireplace, in the Heiligenstadt castle sitting room. It had been a French blue upholstered chair, and he remembered sitting on the ottoman that matched it, watching her in fascination as she made something out of a colorful, long string, that he had held in his boyish hands. He had marveled then at the softness of the afghan threads, and had asked her about the knitting needles. She had patiently answered all of his questions, and told him that the blanket would be his one day.
She had given it to him when he was admitted to the Space Naval Academy in Annapolis years later, telling him that it was a piece of home, that would grant him comfort in less certain times. She had been right, whenever he was wrapped in it, he could pretend that he was home again, feeling comforted by memories of those whom he loved, and were gone from him now.
Miuu was perched on top of his hip, sound asleep, orange tabby tail wrapped across his legs to curl over to the cat's nose. He looked innocent. Harlock gave a snort. Right, since when? He looked over to his office area, and the perch he had made for Tori-San, the other compatriot in crime where mischief was concerned. Tori-San was also sleeping, head under wing. Harlock yawned widely, stretching out his long arms, and stiffening his even longer legs. The cat stirred slightly, but dug in his claws a bit to compensate for the moving human real estate beneath him, not even opening a green eye. Harlock carefully moved the cat to his arms, and peeled back the afghan. He swung legs over and sat up, cradling the cat against his chest. Harlock stroked the smooth, furry head as he thought about the recent events, causing the cat to purr in his blissful sleep.
He truly had been fortunate this last adventure, he thought. Without Harley, he would have had more than just a chest wound, fractured ribs, and a pulled shoulder. He really did need to be more careful. It had been such a promising lead, though, he thought. Tochiro needed the new components, and the elements required for them were reputed to be on that planet. They hadn't been.
But something else had been there, and it had been awaiting him. And it was malevolent. He shuddered. He had never felt evil so personified ever before. He had been in the presence of evil in the past and it hadn't felt like that had felt.
He shook his head. Now, he was sounding like Miimee. He had no telepathic abilities whatsoever, but sometimes he wondered if being around her had "attuned" him to be more sensitive to certain "vibrations".
Who, or what, had lured him there? It was a puzzle that he still had no answer for. He rose quietly from the couch and went to the window of his quarters, looking out over the interior landscape of the asteroid. It was early "evening" according to the clock over the mantel piece. He had slept too long again, but admitted to himself that he had needed it.
He crossed over to his bed, and carefully deposited the sleeping cat on the bed, giving him a final caress. He went back over to the couch and folded up the afghan, and fancied that he could smell his Grandmother's rose perfume still in its folds. He knew that this wasn't true, but his brain told him that it was, for it was a strong association in his mind, even after all of these years. He placed it on the back of the couch, also caressing it's smooth, soft fibers. He would give anything to caress that old, dear woman's cheek he thought. They had been close.
Harlock left his quarters to seek out Tochiro, and get an update on the day. He remembered that this had been the day that the new command functions were to be integrated into the Dark Matter Drive with the main computer. He wondered how that had gone. He trusted that between Tochiro, Kei, Yattaran, and Tadashi, that the job had gotten done. He walked down the hallway to the mess hall, where he could hear sounds of people gathered together, with all of the noise common with meals. He smelled turkey, and his stomach rumbled, reminding him he was about to miss dinner if he didn't get moving.
He was not aware that Masu had built him a separate tray for dinner and was holding it for him in the kitchen, intending to bring it to him in his quarters when he awakened. When he got to the mess hall, he found himself diverted to a private dining area, quiet lights, and peaceful aloneness. Miss Masu hovered over him, and blocked anyone from disturbing him, until after he had eaten his dinner. He allowed her to fuss over him.
Tochiro had come in after Harlock had finished his meal, bringing with him a tray of heavenly smelling chocolate chip cookies that were still warm, with chocolaty ooziness, and buttery, brown sugary goodness that he inhaled the odor of. He immediately grabbed one cookie for each hand. Then had trouble deciding which one to eat first. He decided on a bite from each one in turn, savoring the flavors and richness. Miss Masu also served a pot of tea with cream to go with the cookies, then left the two men alone. The two friends sat and talked, punctuating conversation with cookie chewing. Tochiro had wanted his undivided attention, and the conversation points had definitely required it.
Hours later, he returned to his rooms, and yawned widely when he opened the door. Tochiro and he had talked for hours about the refit, the command drives, and the main computer. He still wasn't convinced that the idea Tochiro had was a wise one, but he was willing to be led by his dear friend in this case, to at least consider the notion. It still seemed like such a hare-brained idea, to incorporate brain cells, and memories from someone into a computer, and not get some tinned-god despot out of the idea.
Especially his own brain cells and memories...
After the accident landing him in a hay barn in Pennsylvania, his brain had swelled from the impact of the landing. The only way that Thea had been able to save him had been to operate on him in the dead of that first night, in the secret operatory, in the "bed and breakfast" house, that was actually her medical clinic.
That surgery had saved his life, both to halt the problems with his internal abdominal hemorrhage from the spleen and omentum, along with the brain surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain; battered and swollen from the landing. The traumatic landing had resulted in a rapidly expanding brain, inside of a finite skull, and it had needed to have pressure relieved. The burr hole she had placed hadn't been enough, so she had removed tissue as well. Without Thea, he would have been brain dead in short order.
His recovery had been slow, but at least he had been saved. It had been a very anxious time for the crew, not knowing where he was, and he not being able to remember who he was in order to communicate with them. Indeed, he hadn't remembered his name, beyond "Franz," for some period of time following the event. The slow healing process, and the peace of that time had stayed with him, grounding him far more than other things had done, since the world had fallen apart. The Widow Schulte and her clan had hidden him, protecting him as he healed. In some ways, Widow Schulte had been a sort of surrogate Grandmother, and he had grown quite fond of her, and her family.
That time had also yielded some spare brain tissue, that Thea had preserved in a stasis jar. Human memory is redundant, with many cross-ties to other storage areas within the brain, so he hadn't lost much in the way of memories, once he had fully healed, but he hadn't wanted to undergo more surgery to have the tissue restored to him. Tochiro had joked with him that he had lost some of his "marbles," and that they were safe in the jar, if he ever needed them back. Harlock remembered that he had thumped Tochiro in the shoulder for that one. Of course, Tochiro had thumped him back, and had started thinking; which is always a dangerous thing where Tochiro was concerned.
Tochiro's brain had gone to places Harlock had no idea he was going to go; use the memories and tissue of the brain as a matrix for the AI? Harlock knew that he had a (more than) small problem with stubbornness, and sheer audacity, if he was honest with himself. God help everyone, if that was multiplied by an AI matrix based on himself.
And how was that supposed to work, with two of the same person working on command functions? Would it be complementary, or would it backfire badly, because he would be wanting one thing, and his separated brain and memories, wanting something else?
Tochiro told him there was a way to do it, and do it safely, and not have that happen. Harlock had misgivings; lots of them. He wasn't exactly weak-willed, and couldn't see how it would be possible to curb his own desires, without the addition of the conscience that being human provided. It was his main objection to mechanical beings, the absence of a human heart, to curb the excesses of immortal pride. After all, his soul resided in his body with him, not in the stasis jar with a part of his brain. He would need to think on it some more. He hadn't given permission, yet.
OOOOOOOOOO
Widow Schulte put the eggs that her son had given her on a small, folded towel. She would use them in the morning to make cookies for their promised guest. She had plenty of butter in the spring house. She would send Jacob to town in the morning for the chocolate chips. She had everything else that she needed.
She smiled. A visit from her scallywag "adopted" son. He was entirely different from them, all of she and her family, and the rest of the Amish community. Had he been her son in truth, he would likely have been shunned, but Harlock was given some slack, knowing who he was, and what he had actually done. They might not approve of him, entirely, but there were some advantages in knowing an "English" like Harlock. Even the Elders had agreed with that, nodding with their grayed beards.
After all, he might bring her new pins, and a new pair of scissors for making clothing. A new thimble would be nice, too. She hummed an ancient hymn, as she straightened up the already tidy kitchen.
Little did she know what else he would want. Or the adventure she would have granting that want. But that was for the future, for now, she was in her home with her family, and all was at peace. She said a prayer for her family as she checked on all of them on her way to bed. And one also for a one-eyed, scarred, and very tall man, who fancied himself a pirate, who would also have been amused, but grateful, had he known of that prayer. She retired to bed, secure in her place, knowing all was right with her world.
OOOOOOO