He Who Dares: Book Three (29 page)

“First, you have to get all the yard dogs, their families, and anyone else who worked on my ship to agree. It will mean you all have to leave Earth, and probably never return.”

“Blimey! That’s a lot to ask,” Able muttered, rubbing his chin.

“I know, but considering the alternative…”

Able nodded, “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“I can tell you that if you decide to go, there will be housing, work if you want it, and you’ll be well looked after. I promise.”

“That’s a lot to promise, gov’ner.”

“Not if your great, great grandfather, and grandfather owned and ran the whole damn planet.” Jenks muttered.

“Struth… wait, I thought some bloke by the name of Tregallion owns it? Just saw him on the news”

Jenks chuckled hearing that and pointed a thumb at Mike. “That’s him,” he muttered. Able didn’t look convinced. “If you think that’s hard to swallow, we had breakfast with the Princess Royal this morning.”

“Now I know you’re pulling my plonker,” Able snorted.

Jenks pulled a battered old porta-comp out of his pocket and switched it on. “You think?” he said, tapping the screen before sliding it across the table.

Able flipped through the photos and whistled softly.

“Jenks! Did your mother tell you it was rude to take pictures of people without telling them?”

“Yeah, she did, but who was going to believe me if I didn’t?”

Mike grabbed the porta-comp and took a look, shaking his head as he flipped through the photos. Sure enough, it showed him and the Princess Royal sitting side-by-side, very cozy, having a meal.

“I’ll need to get hold of Cynthia and talk to her,” was all he said after seeing the photos. “Where can I reach you?”

“I’m not sure yet. Give me your comm number and I’ll contact you, how’s that.”

“Sounds about right. Give me a day or two before you call. I’ll let you know what I’ve found out.” They only spoke for a little while longer before Able took off to find Cynthia.

“Well, that’s one down, only a million to go.”

“A million what, Skipper?”

“Problems, my old son, problems.”

It was worse than Mike ever imagined. He and Jenks went from meeting to meeting as the yard workers gathered in small groups so as not to attract attention. In some cases, the meeting degenerated into a shouting match and one time almost a fistfight. Mike had insisted that all meetings include their wives, and that started another round of argument from some of the men who were engaged, about to be married, or going steady with a girl. It took a while and a lot of arguing to get them to understand the importance of secrecy. In the end under the pretense of a reunion dance they got everyone together at the same time. Even that was a headache, as the first hall they wanted to rent wasn’t big enough for everyone. In the end Mike rented the local dance hall. Able Marsh stationed a few men who’d already voted to go outside as a security screen and after a round of drinks, burgers, and chips, the meeting got underway. It was no easy sell with too many people sitting on the fence or waffling back and forth between going and not going. In the end, Cynthia stood up and walked to the podium.

“All right you lot. Shut up and listen.”

Jenks had to admit; she did have a commanding voice and would probably have made a great Marine Corps drill instructor.

“Leftenant Grey could have taken off and said to hell with it. Why should he care what happens to a bunch of knuckle dragging yard dogs,” that got a laugh, “but he didn’t. He came here, not only to warn us of a potential threat to the lives our families, but to offer us an opportunity to get back to work at something we like doing.”

“Yeah, but how do we know this place is any safer than here.” It was a good point, and Cynthia looked at Mike.

“All of you have heard stories about Avalon,” Mike stepped forward and looked around the group. “That where I’m from in case you were wondering. Most of what you have heard or read about Avalon in the newsfeeds is only half-true. Are we genetic supermen hell bent on ruling the galaxy?” He had their attention now.

“The governing council is comprised of people like you who are selected by lottery. Some have to be dragged to the council meeting by the proctors.” That brought a round of laughter. “We are a freewheeling lot on Avalon, and as long as you don’t endanger anyone else’s life without their express consent, you can pretty much do whatever you want.”

“You make it sound like a paradise, but what happens if the Sirriens invade Avalon.”

“For a start everyone on Avalon over the age of eighteen is required by law to be armed at all times. Under eighteens are required to carry non-lethal weapons. For obvious reasons, I can’t tell you much about what other defenses we have, but trust me on this. Any Sirrien troops who landed on Avalon would be dead in less than twelve hours, no matter how many of them there were, or what they were wearing as armor. Also,” he held his hand up to quiet them down, “the weather is much nicer than here,” he added before standing back and letting Cynthia take over again.

“So, people. It's time to make up your minds. If you stay, you’d better go some place where no one knows you, and hope that the Sirrien secret police don’t find you. For those that want to go, put your hands up.” It wasn’t unanimous and several people elected to stay, despite the risk.

It did give Mike a number to work with, as besides the 500 hundred or so yard dogs who’d worked on his ship in some way, there were three times that number in their immediate families. All told he was dealing with transporting over 1500 people. That prompted a call to the
Orion Dawn
and a chat with Captain MacManus once he got back to London and the Guild Hall. They came to an agreement to use three of the
Orion Dawn’s
huge cargo shuttles to land at three different locations. All that was left was to wait for the signal from Cynthia and Able telling them that everyone was ready. Time was of the essence as the longer they took to get everyone ready, the more chance there was of someone finding out what was going on. Inevitably, someone would say something to someone else, a tearful goodbye to a relation, boyfriend, grandparents, the captain of the darts team and the cat would be out of the bag as they say. Mike took to pacing back and forth across the living room in their quarters at the Guild Hall driving Jenks and Taffy to distraction.

“Christ, Skipper. You keep that up and you’ll wear a hole in the bloody carpet,” Jenks muttered.

“What?” Mike asked deep in thought.

“Sit down and relax man. There’s not a bloody thing you can do right now,” Taffy added.

“Oh… yes. I see what you mean. It’s just…”

“We know, Skipper, but it’s no good you worrying yourself sick and pacing back and forth. It’s worse than watching a blooming slow motion tennis match at Wimbledon.”

*  *  *  *  *  *

“Excuse me, your Royal Highness, but there is someone at the gate wishing to see you.” The palace chamberlain, Charles ‘Dusty’ Miller had a frown on his face in the comm screen. He didn’t like unexpected visitors turning up at the side gate asking for a member of the royal family, especially a rather seedy looking older gentleman in a rumpled suit and a raincoat.

“Did he give a name, Dusty?” Princess Anne, smiled slightly, knowing Dusty’s propensity to be over protective. Like a mother hen with one egg, as her father would say.

“No, your Highness, he just said to tell you, ‘Rosetta Stone’.”

Startled, the princess looked up from the report she was reading. “Have him brought to my office under escort immediately, Dusty.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Anne quickly cleared her desk and made sure she hadn’t left anything of importance lying around. Today, she was dressed in a more business like attire, with her hair tied back in a tight knot and wearing a cream-colored silk shirt blouse, and white slacks. She was in her “Ice Princess” mode, as her brother Richard would say. A short while later there was a knock at her office door.

“Come.” The door opened and a tall, stooped figure of an old man in a rumpled suit stepped in. Behind him came two members of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, a corporal and a trooper, appearing short in comparison to the man they were escorting.

“Thank you, Corporal. Would you be so kind as to wait outside and guard the door?” Both Gurkhas looked a bit bemused being in the presence of a member of the royal family. They didn’t usually see them up this close while on guard duty.

“Yes, your Highness. It would be an honor. Anne waited until the door closed behind them before speaking. She stood and came round the desk to shake hands.

“I’m a bit surprised to see you, Professor Chilton.” Chilton shook hands and smiled slightly, looking a little nervous. “Please, have a seat. Would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?”

“No, thank you, your Highness. I had some on the mag-lift from Devon.” The princess retook her seat behind the desk.

“I take it that something occurred with our mystery package.”

“Yes indeed, but not what we expected.” The professor gave her a weak smile. “It didn’t blow up when the odd, alien numbers cycled down to nothing.”

After returning to Earth with the fist-sized cylinder she’d received from the
Harmony
representative, she’d immediately turned it over to the research division at the Royal Arsenal. The consensus was that it could be some sort of explosive device intended to take out the royal family much to the princess’s displeasure. Why the
Harmony
would go to all that trouble to kill the royal family was beyond her. The initial report on the object didn’t shed any light on its purpose or even what it was made of. It defied examination by x-ray and any other penetrating scan. It couldn’t be cut or drilled with any known substance, and even a laser didn’t have any effect on it. Other than the row of bright red alien symbols along one side, it didn’t appear to have any purpose at all. The last symbol in the row of ten did change at a regular interval, but not to any earthly count. The assumption was that it was keeping time to that of the
Harmony
planet it came from. If that were true, the planetary rotation was twenty-six hours.

“As I reported the last time, your Highness, the…” the professor hesitated a moment, as if searching for the right word to describe the object, “…device was kept in a remote bunker for safety with twenty-four hour video surveillance. For the past year, the only thing that changed were the symbols. They… counted down, I suppose you would say until it had a row of something that looked like this.” He offered the princess a slip of paper witha strange looking symbol on i
t
e

“Odd, very odd. Anything else?”

“Oh yes!” The professor answered, sounding excited. “See for yourself.” With that, he reached into his bag and lifted out the cylinder she was so familiar with. The fact that the professor had taken it out of the bunker and brought it to the palace said that he didn’t think it was a threat of some kind. He turned the cylinder so she could see the row of alien symbols, and she gasped in surprise.

“That’s impossible!” she gasped.

“That may very well be, your Highness, but there it is.”

Anne shook her head and looked at the cylinder again. Parading across one side in bright red letters was a message, an impossible message.

…FOR CAPTAIN MICHAEL GRAY ONLY…
Repeating itself. Both sat there in silence for several minutes, until the professor coughed, breaking Anne’s train of thought.

“Will there be anything else, your Highness?”

Anne mentally shook herself, “No… no, professor. Thank you for bringing this to me. Say nothing to anyone about this. In fact, as far as you are concerned, you have never seen this cylinder or the message.”

“Of course, your Highness. We in research and development are accustomed to secrecy.” He gave her a broad smile as he stood, bowing slightly before shaking hands once again and leaving the room.

Anne was so preoccupied that she was hardly aware of him leaving, retaking her seat, and staring at the enigmatic cylinder on her desk. How could the
Harmony
know about one particular naval officer in the Royal Navy by name, and why would this object be only for him? The whole point of her secret trip, disguised as a lowly King’s Messenger, was to establish direct communication between Earth and the leader… if that was the word to use, of the
Harmony
. It was preposterous to think that they would know the exact name of all fifty billion human beings across known space much less of one particular ship’s captain that, to her knowledge, knew nothing more than anyone else about them. She didn’t discount the importance of the cylinder nor ignore the fact that it supposedly belonged to Mike Gray. It was the “why” that bothered her. Why go to all the trouble of setting up a meeting to get the cylinder to Earth, and then have it sit around for over a year before displaying this message. It spoke of things way beyond her understanding, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. In frustration, she tapped the comm unit.

“Dusty, would you please have a King’s Messenger come to my office.”

“Yes, your Highness, immediately.” She rang off and tap in another number.