Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (34 page)

Chase nodded, smiling. “I have two regeneration tanks standing by, just as you ordered,” he said, and then Scott saw Mrs. Ellis beckoning him over.

“Yes ma’am.”

“My husband has something to tell you,” she whispered. The old man looked at each of them, then his wife.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded. “My wife tells me that you are good people, and that you risked your life to rescue us. And for that, I thank you.”

“No charge, Professor, all part of the service,” Scott answered, trying to make light of it.

“I have to tell you, I didn’t invent the rings,” Ellis said. Scott felt a keen sense of disappointment at hearing that. “My wife did.”

“What! What did you say?”

“My wife, Maddy invented the rings. She’s a much better scientist than I ever was, but it’s impossible for a woman to receive any recognition in this world, so she told me to take the credit. That’s what I have been doing all along. She invented everything, it was always her,” he said, beginning to cry.

“Well I be …”

“You want to know how the rings work, and how to build them, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do, but that has nothing to do with the treatment you two are going to get.”

“I don’t care how you treat me, but please look after my wife for me.”

“You misunderstand, Professor,” Chase said, smiling. “We’re talking about regeneration, not comfort. We have a way of reversing the effects of aging,” he explained as Scott went over and took the old lady’s hand.

“Do you remember me telling you that you would be running in the sunshine again?” Scott asked, and she smiled and nodded. “In about six months to a year, you and your husband will be running down a beach in the sunlight, enjoying life once more, with no one bothering you ever again.” He looked up at the professor.

“Do you have a stylus and a recorder?” Maddy asked. Karl produced both immediately. With a trembling hand she wrote something down on the pad, then made a little drawing, before she began dictating into the recorder.

While she was doing that, Chase spoke softly into his wrist comm, and a few moments later a nurse entered with a tray. Chase loaded up a hypospray and looked at his wristband for the time, as if gauging the amount it would take before the shot took effect. At last, Maddy stopped, but whether from exhaustion, or because she’d completed saying everything, they didn’t know. Either way Chase didn’t wait; coaxing the professor onto the second bed, he injected both of them.

“All right you two, out you go,” Scott said gently. “I have work to do.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You are a very good person, look after that lady of yours, and the baby.” She closed her eyes.

Reaching down, he kissed the old lady on the forehead as she drifted off to sleep. “You sleep now, and I’ll see you in a while.” He doubted she heard him because she was already asleep.

“What do you think, Karl? Do we have something?”

“Let me get back to the hangar, and I’ll let you know later today,” Karl said, looking at the pad and scratching his head again. “Damn, I hope they both make it, Scott, they could both be great assets to us.”

“I’d just be glad to see them enjoying themselves on a beach somewhere.”

Karl looked at him oddly for a moment, then nodded, understanding where Scott was coming from. The couple had just given them their life’s work, and nothing more would be asked of them. It would be up to them if they wanted to contribute something more. If not, then that was all right as well.

CHAPTER FOUR:              
…
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on

                   the sheep without mercy."…
LTC (RET) D. Grossman

“Gentlemen, we have a problem.” Randolph Roberts looked around the circle of the holographic pit. It appeared he was surrounded by eight people, each sitting on one of the couches on each side of him. They ranged in age from their late forties to one who was over one hundred. Two, besides Randolph, were dressed in conservative business suits, while the others preferred less formal garb, such as colorful robes or the togas a few were dressed in.

“Yes, I agree we have a problem, a big one,” the youngest of the group seconded. “We have to find a way to get our children back from those deviants.”

“Not having any children, I for one don’t care what they do to them,” the old man next to Skinner said with a sneer. “My concern is putting these deviants back in their cages where they belong!”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, those sentiments are all well and good, and I sympathize with those of you who have children held by these …” Randolph stopped for a moment, thinking of the right word, “these animals, is the best way to describe them. But, you can always have more children.”

“I agree, filthy little things!” Director Skinner curled his lip in distaste. His face was still discolored, but the doctors had managed to put all his features back into their proper places, and implant new teeth, but he still looked a mess.

“It’s because of you we’re in this predicament, Skinner!” the young man snarled.

“I didn’t hear you complaining when you were getting the cream of the crop for your private use, Dagget! Or your share of the profits,” Skinner shot back.

“Gentlemen.” Randolph didn’t raise his voice, but it cut through the air like a knife. “Director Dagget is correct. If you had kept your, shall we say, experiment under wraps, and not ran off and try to sell it to Westwood, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Turning a profit is what I do, and without your approval or say-so, I might add.” Skinner looked disdainfully at the other members of the group, then sniffed a pinch of white powder up his nose.

“That is not what we’re here to discuss, at least not as the main point,” Randolph said.

“Then what is? I have other things I need to be doing.” The old man raised one bushy eyebrow.

“Yes, I’m sure your little boy toys are just pining away from the lack of your ‘attention’,” Director Dagget muttered.

“It’s the question of what to do about those rings, or gateways, that we are here to discuss,” Randolph snapped, cutting off the bickering.

“What about them, Randolph?” Dagget said.

“We no longer have them. Or I should say, they’re not where we left them. Nor do we possess the inventor or his wife, since they’ve disappeared.”

Director Skinner gasped. “Allah preserve us, Randolph. What happened?”

Dagget’s constant frown became a scowl. “Don’t tell us they died or had an ‘accident’.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just …” Randolph sighed and took a deep breath. “The rings were purchased by this Scott Drake’s people before I could stop it. Then they somehow found out where Professor Ellis was being held and extracted him.”

“Good luck to him,” Dagget said. “If our people couldn’t get anything out of him in eight years, what gives you the idea that these people will?”

“Because, gentlemen, they do not think as we do, and might have more persuasive methods of extracting the information.”

“Har! I wish him luck.”

“Yes, I doubt he has access to the same drugs we do, and if they couldn’t get anything out of Ellis, I don’t know what will,” Skinner said. “Even so, they now possess the only rings in existence.”

“Why on earth you ever sold them in the first place is beyond me,” Dagget said, shaking his head.

“After our, shall we say, misadventure at the R&D facility in the desert,” Randolph said, “I thought it best for all concerned to disassociate ourselves from the others until we had the secret. It wasn’t as if anyone else was going to discover it. Also, at the time, we had no way of knowing if the upper council knew they existed.” Randolph kept silent on that point.

“So now they have all of the rings, and their inventor.”

“Not all of the rings, Director Kinarga, we still have one.”

“For all the good it will do us!”

“I don’t agree. My technicians tell me they will be able to ascertain the whereabouts and usage of the other rings though the one they have.”

Dagget glared at Randolph. “And this will help us how?”

“At this time it’s hard to say, but research is progressing on ways to identify and use the other gateways.”

“So we could pass someone through them to wherever they are, and …”

“That is one possibility, Director Kinarga, but only if we can find out how they are … put together and operate. Without that, they’re just interesting scientific curiosities.”

“And might be a way to eliminate these people as a threat once they have dealt with the aliens, if they can.”

Dagget rubbed his chin in thought. “Hmm, how is our training program coming on that? Can we duplicate these people’s training methods and turn out, what do you call them? Oh yes, soldiers.”

“To some degree. We had limited success recently using one of our people.” The members of the group looked at Randolph expectantly. “He was able to shoot one of their soldiers, with little success I might add, but was subsequently, um, killed by one of the women guards.” He saw one or two of the group shudder.

“The thought of a woman being able to, um, kill, let alone raise a hand to a man appalls me,” the old man muttered, obviously upset.

“Yes, it’s an unsettling thought.”

“And our intelligence network in their camp?”

“For the moment, I’ve directed the remainder to remain passive, and just gather as much information as they can. So far they’ve been unable to penetrate the building the rings are being kept in.”

“A wise precaution, but a little frustrating.”

“Even so, information is becoming more difficult to obtain. Now that they’re aware of the existence of our agents, they’ve increased their security measures. Also, many of our spy cam and listening devices have failed for some unknown reason.”

“So, what do we do about this man Drake’s threat?” the old man asked. “They will want to know who is passing information to the aliens, if, that is, he’s telling the truth.”

Randolph smiled. “Have no fear. I have convinced our gullible friend Westwood to place me in charge of all investigations into this matter. What he sees and hears will come though me.”

Dagget scowled. “These people are expecting some results.”

“Yes, and I will give it to them.”

“How?”

“Let’s just say, some of our agents, and a few fellow members on the lower council, will be offered up as sacrificial goats, with accompanying evidence to support it.”

“Excellent. That should keep these dogs at bay long enough for us to find a lasting solution.”

“We still have Kessler’s other solution,.” Skinner added.

“I for one wouldn’t put too much faith in Kessler’s little trick,” Randolph said, “but, as you say, it is an option.”

“So, your advice is?” the old man asked.

“For the moment, do nothing to attract these people’s attention, nor mine,” he said, looking pointedly at Skinner. “We will continue with our plans as before, with a special interest in seeing if these people have indeed found the secret to the rings. I’ll report to the upper council, and implement any suggestion they might have.”

CHAPTER FIVE:              
… "Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect