The Time Stone (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Does that mean we could have an ancient, Old Earth human jump out of that thing?”

  “I would not be surprised,” Redmond chuckled. “That’s why we have several doctors on call and a couple of veterinarians. We’re trying combinations of frequencies at the rate of one every five minutes, but it’s going to take a year to cover a fraction of the possible.”

  “You can not speed that up? One every five seconds or less?”

  “No, we get the best reaction when the device is shielded from all other energy sources, sound, light, radio waves, micro waves, all the way up the frequency scale. The chamber was especially re-designed with energy absorbing walls, floor and ceiling. So to make it simple, we have to turn out the lights, zap it, and then turn the lights on again to see what happened. That takes time.”

  Nagel folded his arms and lowered his head. After a few seconds of contemplation he looked up. “I think I have a damn fine news story, even if all I can show is a silly looking rabbit with gigantic ears. May I bring in my camera crew now?”

  “Be my guest. We need the publicity to keep the cash coming.”

  “Back in twenty minutes,” Nagel said, turning toward the door.

  “One thing I’d like to bring out in the interview,” the doctor said. “The device is in isolation building 412. The room is the size of a football field with walls three meters thick and layers of copper, lead, titanium and granite. All security measures are in force. I do not want idiots to panic thinking that we’re trying to unleash some monster on the universe.”

  Nagel turned his head and smiled. “I’ll bring that up. I do not want my news cast to be the cause of a protest.”

  The doctor continued. “I would also like to minimize reference to its possible advanced nonhuman origin. We’re not prepared to make detailed comments on that yet.”

  “I insist on bringing up the possibility of an ancient Old Earth human suddenly appearing.”

  “I hope that does happen. We know so little about Old Earth history. I’ll have a million questions to ask. I just hope he or she has a high level of education.”

  “And has a good memory,” Nagel said over his shoulder and walked into the corridor.

  Chapter 2

  The early morning Texas sun shone through the curtainless windows and warmed the outer surface of Jim’s army issue sleeping bag. The orange glow penetrated his closed eyelids as he slowly awoke.

  The sounds of heavy breathing accompanied by the odor of bad breath compelled one eye to half open. A large, wet, black nose appeared a short distance in front of him.

  “Ralph, must you get right in my face?” Jim said, gently pushing the offending snout away from him.

  The family German Shepherd’s tail thumped a greeting on the carpet. Jim sat upright unzipping his sleeping bag. A quick look around revealed two multi colored, Sponge Bob, and Mickey Mouse sleeping bags resting close by. Their content didn’t move at that early hour.

  Jim struggled to his feet. He stretched, feeling for the mild back pain that usually accompanied a night of sleeping on the floor.

  Ralph jumped up, bounding enthusiastically out the door of a bedroom emptied of its furniture. Jim followed, but took a slightly different route into the bathroom. Ralph headed for the back yard to perform his dogly duties.

  The shower slowly warmed. It would be the last one he took in that house. It was moving day. Killeen, Texas was his home for three years; now it was time to leave. A rental truck with the contents of his house sat outside readied for the long drive halfway across the country to Fort Lewis, Washington. His planned route through New Mexico and Arizona wasn’t the shortest but he had to make a stop at San Bernardino, California on the way.

  He wouldn’t have chosen to live in this town of his own free will, the Army sent him there so he had no say in it. Another set of orders were sending him elsewhere. None too soon for Jim’s liking. Fort Hood was a dreary place. The United States Army had a habit of locating posts in the most uninteresting places. For the past three years, Jim had spent his off duty hours trying to stay in the land of the sane. Some things helped, reading, collecting and downloading movies for his video tape and DVD players and listening to music. He preferred the attractive beaches and golf courses of his previous duty station: Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

  One advantage to the lack of outside distractions was the military sponsored education. Jim was working on a college degree through correspondence courses. Regular classes were difficult to attend due to frequent trips into the field with his unit. The degree was a master plan for military retirement six years away. He wanted an education for employment. Army retirement pay alone was impossible to live on.

  The shower suddenly went cold, a quirk in the plumbing. Jim stepped back avoiding the spray hoping it’d turn warm again. This happened at the frequency of about one morning in three. He waited. He had no desire to prove his manhood by completing the morning shower cold. ‘Oh well,’ he thought ‘a problem for the next tenants to deal with.’

  His rental was a small, but congenial, three bedroom house in an out of the way area. It was about four miles from the post’s main gate.

  The water warmed slightly. Jim dove back in, quickly rinsing off the soap before it went cold again. The sound of the front screen door made him pause to listen. Every door and window in the house remained open all night. The carpets had had their traditional shampoo and were still slightly damp. He knew it was a friend who was visiting. Ralph wasn’t barking.

  “Jim!” shouted a young male voice from the living room. “Me and Marcie came to see you off!”

  “Hi Don, don’t come back here unless you have a mad desire to see me naked!”

  “Eeeek!” A second voice, female, let out a mock scream.

  “You’re not my type Jim,” Don said in a tone bordering on a laugh, “but I think it’s turning Marcie on,”

  “Ok, Ok, Marcie. Either come on in and take a peek or make coffee.”

  “I think I’ll make coffee. The excitement may be too much for me,” Marcie replied. He heard the creak of a floorboard which indicated that she was on her way to the kitchen.

  Jim had a simple rule for troops under him. On duty he was addressed as Sergeant Young. Out of uniform they called him by his first name. This was a practice held by few in his position. It was a matter of confidence in one’s abilities. Most noncommissioned officers couldn’t allow anyone to get that familiar for fear of losing control. The majority of his friends were from the junior enlisted. He found few fellow sergeants with whom he had anything in common.

  Jim’s military background was highly varied with experience and expertise in many fields. Others of his rank tended to become defensive in general conversation due to a mild underlying jealousy of his proficiency. The lower ranks had a desire to learn from his experience.

  Jim finished his shower then dried himself. Following habit he bounced up and down to test the bathroom floor. He didn’t trust the contractor who replaced it after a friend had gone through a rotten section. It was quite amusing to see Mel stuck up to his knees through the floor, especially in the man’s state of intoxication which complicated pulling him out. Again, something for the next tenants to deal with.

  The drive to Fort Lewis Washington was over two thousand miles. Jim selected his most comfortable clothes, an old green shirt and jeans that had seen better days. After all, who would see him? Jim and his two sons had set up the back of their twenty four foot rental truck with mattresses and bedding placed on top of boxes of books. Sleeping at rest stops every second night would save money. Jim figured out many ways to squeeze the most cash out of a military sponsored move.

  “Coffee’s ready!” Marcie called. Jim stepped out of the bathroom door into the short hallway.

  Stopping for a moment to examine a rectangular area on the wall where the paint was a lighter color, he thought of the carefully packed picture that used to hang there. It was an enlarged photograph of the men of Jim’s former Special Force
s unit. He loved the unit, as well as the job, but marriage and S.F. don’t mix. The time spent away from home and the uncertainty of where a soldier would be sent at a moments notice had broken up many a family. He felt compelled to make the choice between the two.

  The picture occasionally caused a strange reaction with friends. A line he heard many times was – ‘But you don’t seem to be the Special Forces type’. He never quite understood exactly what they expected. Answering the door with a knife between his teeth and a dead snake in his hand wasn’t exactly his style.

  In a military career one says goodbye to many friends. Each character is well remembered for many reasons, both good and bad. The two that were visiting him today would be sincerely missed in years to come, as many others already were.

  Don and Marcie smiled as he entered the kitchen. It was a large bright room, lit by muted indirect morning sunlight. The normally cluttered shelves and counter now held only enough supplies to cover breakfast. The refrigerator contained only food suitable for traveling. The freezer was full of ice for the cooler.

  T-shirts, shorts and the wet patterns of sweat, suggested that they had just come from the morning’s compulsory physical training.

  Don was a tall, slim, white nineteen year old from somewhere in Virginia. He had no trace of an accent from that region. The son of an Air Force officer, his early life was one of movement and association with many accents.

  Marcie was a thirty-two-year-old, black, short, single parent of three from Fresno, California. She originally joined the military as an escape from the poverty of an unemployed single parent, but found that she had a distinct aptitude for the life. She was hard working and highly efficient. Jim was instrumental in her early promotion to the rank of specialist.

  Don and Marcie were army buddies. They hung around together in a purely platonic relationship.

  In the unit Jim had just left, he was in charge of a medical platoon half of which were female. After many years of macho, all male units, the ease of adapting to the presence of women surprised him. The only difference he found was that he had to be careful of what body parts he scratched while in the field.

  “So, Captain Morris sent you two to make sure I was really leaving,” Jim said with a broad grin.

  “What’s that?” Don exclaimed, looking up from feeding Ralph half a jelly donut.

  “Morris wants to make sure he’s finally got rid of me,” Jim said, chuckling to himself.

  “Believe me Jim,” Don said in a serious tone. “Morris isn’t happy to lose you. You were just about the only medical NCO he had that knew what they were doing.”

  Jim dismissed the compliment with a wave of his hand. “What about Morgan? He seems to know how to run the clinic.”

  “Morgan doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” Marcie interjected, her tone of voice was extremely hostile.

  She handed Jim a mug, one of the four not packed on the truck. It contained the staple breakfast of the career soldier, black coffee. That and jelly donuts made up the traditional morning meal. Jim accepted the cup which was uncomfortably hot. He shifted it from hand to hand until he got a good grip on the wet and slippery handle.

  “Give him a chance; he’ll do just fine,” Jim said, trying to inject confidence into his statement. He also had little regard for Morgan’s abilities, but it was traditional for sergeants to support one another. The man was one of those who had little knowledge of how to handle troops.

  “I’ll give him a chance,” Marcie said. “I’ll give him a five second head start before I chase him with a tent pole and smack him in the head with it.”

  “Bad attitude soldier!” Jim laughed.

  “He’s the one with a bad attitude.”

  Don chuckled, obviously amused by Marcie’s antagonism. “I’ll keep her under control Sarge.”

  “What’re you two doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be out there performing military stuff, like marching or sitting ‘round the clinic bull-shitting?”

  “Clinic’s closed,” Don said with a note of pleasure. “Post engineers are taking up the floor for some reason. We asked Morgan if we could come over and help you get out of here.”

  Marcie walked toward the door cocking her head to listen. “Colin and Mike not up yet?” She loved kids and took every opportunity to visit and bring her three along.

  “Not yet but they should be, we’re leaving in an hour.”

  “I’ll get ‘em up,” she said over her shoulder and walked into the hallway.

  “Thanks, we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  Don looked around at the empty house. “Where did you sleep last night?”

  “Air mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor. The kids loved it, it’s like camping to them. Can’t say the same for myself. Fourteen years in the army has dulled my enthusiasm for roughing it.”

  “Know that,” Don replied with a look of disgusted. “Everything fit in that twenty four footer?”

  “Yep, everything, and I do mean everything. Didn’t have time to drop by the recycler’s so I threw all the garbage on, empty beer cans and all. Get rid of ‘em when I get to Washington.” Jim thought for a moment. “By the way. When Sergeant Bent was transferred to Korea last month he dumped a couple of boxes of novels on my doorstep before he left. Do you want any?”

  “Westerns?”

  “No idea. I haven’t even opened the boxes yet.”

  “I only read westerns and Sergeant Bent was extremely religious. They’re probably only spiritual type books.”

  “I should’ve had a yard sale,” Jim said. “I’ve got boxes and boxes of useless stuff.”

  “I’d like some of those videos,” Don said. “You know, the old ones from the 1950s Sgt. Bell gave you. Some are westerns.”

  “Damn,” Jim said. “They’re buried deep. Have to unload half the truck to get at them.”

  “Female on the floor!” came Marcie’s voice from the bedroom. “Grab your socks troops, and move it!”

  “The hot water’s on the fritz again!” Jim shouted at the door to the hallway then turned to fill an old blue kettle. “They’re going to have to wash up in the sink!”

  He put the kettle on the stove while turning up the gas, then returned his attention to Don. “My kids’re going to miss Marcie and her three.”

  “Yeah, they will, but they’ll make new friends at Fort Lewis. Where’s Jenny now?”

  Jim shrugged his shoulders. “She’s still in San Bernardino visiting her parents.”

  Don lowered his head. “I felt real bad when I heard you two were separating.”

  Jim looked up at Don’s sympathetic face and shrugged again. “Well, that’s the way it goes. Army life is tough on wives. Me being gone for ten months didn’t help. I don’t blame her for wanting to get away from it for a while.”

  Jim refilled his cup again from the small coffee maker.

  “But we were off at a war for those months!” Don said.

  “It wasn’t that bad. You came back with all your body parts intact.”

  Don’s expression turned sour. “Yes, but Afghanistan wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

  “A field hospital’s a better place to be than the infantry. At least you had a cot to sleep on instead of the ground.”

  Don became agitated. He clenched a fist thumping it lightly on the counter to emphasize his opinion. “Yes, but the wives left back here had nothing to complain about. Sitting here with T.V., supermarkets, air conditioning and heating. We cooked during the day and froze our butts off at night. It was...”

  “Can we get off this subject?” Jim interrupted. “I just want to wait and see. We may get back together again. I don’t know.”

  Sympathetic friends showing him support over his marital problems were starting to become annoying. He appreciated their concern, but would sooner they not bring it up.

  Don’s eyes opened wide and he raised an eyebrow. “Now that you’re a free man you should hang around for a while longer. I know some of
the girls in the platoon would be very interested.”

  Jim laughed. “They’re all like my sisters, or should I say my kids.”

  “Have a donut?” Don said while opening the white cardboard box on the counter.

  “Sure will,” Jim reached for a bear claw. “I wish Jenny had taken Ralph with her. He’s been a right pain in the shorts. Canine insecurity I guess. He runs around in circles getting in the way.”

  “Yep, dogs do that when their world is changing,” Don said while bending down to pat Ralph who was patiently following Don’s donut filled hand with his eyes. “I don’t envy your trip; what is it, two thousand miles?”

  “Two thousand six hundred. We’re going by way of San Bernardino.”

  “That sounds worse,” Don said. “How long will it take?”

  “About five to six days. I’ve done the trip before, it isn’t that bad.” Jim lied, he not only didn’t like the idea of the lengthy trip, he felt a mild dread over the prospect of many boring hours at the wheel.

  “Three of you plus a German Shepherd in the front of a truck? That sounds a little crowded to me.”

  “No, remember I’m towing the Corolla. Ralph’ll be quite happy back there.”

  Jim looked down smiling affectionately at his dog. Ralph had traveled in a car under tow before. He seemed to enjoy it, leaping from front seat to back, barking at every passing car. It helped him occupy the time, in what was, to a dog, a constructive fashion.

  Marcie’s face appeared at the kitchen door. “They’re up and asking what’s for breakfast.”

  Jim grinned while raising the lid on the box of donuts. “Well, mom’s not here.”

  Marcie frowned.

  “I’ll go down the street and get more,” Don chuckled and headed for the door.

  Jim took the three paces to the hallway. “Donuts for breakfast, what do you want for lunch?” he shouted in the direction of the bedroom.