Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer) (21 page)

“Then maybe we should educate them,” Irons replied.

“Educate who? About what?” A kid asked.

The admiral snorted looking down at the scruffy lad. “About
Landing Day. He sat and used a hologram to describe the events on Landing day.
He used what information was in the Encyclopedia Galactica and then answered
generic answers about the basics of colony startups and terraforming to any
questions the lad had. Others nearby heard him talking about Landing day and
became intrigued. Slowly they crept closer to see and hear.

 Word spread of that discussion. One of the people who heard was
Jerry Richards. He went to the source in order to put the story out in the
paper the next day. He'd just finished jotting about a woman named Henrietta
who had been healed after an encounter with a man in the same town. Maybe he
could find both men.

The Admiral was amused that a reporter had tracked him down just
to hear that story. He took the time to sit down to let the young man interview
him. Jerry Richards, the young man introduced himself, with a brunet assistant
who seemed bored. She was quite the looker, and for a woman here on this world,
rather scantily dressed in her short black minidress and matching high heels.
The woman excused herself to go to the bar early on. Both men were amused by
that, but for different reasons.

Jerry was a nice guy, a real newspaper reporter who wasn't so much
interested in him as he was other things. Apparently they had enough meat and
potato stories for now.

Jerry introduced himself as a reporter for the EDP when he met the
admiral at the bed and breakfast. He showed Irons his credentials. Irons was
amused. Sprite double checked but had little to go on. “Your editor is a Mr.
White?” Irons asked when Sprite fed him data from what she'd cataloged from the
newspaper he'd read the other day.

“You know him?” Jerry asked, sounding concerned. Was this a dead
end? He thought.

“No, I know of him. Real news hound from the reports,” Irons
replied, quickly scanning the brief Sprite had. So that panned out. “I'll tell
you what, this place has a nice drawing room. I'll meet you there for lunch.”

“Um...”

“My treat,” Irons replied, recognizing the reporter's reluctance.
Most likely he was on a strict budget.

Jerry blinked and then smiled.

The room was mostly empty, it had a beautiful view of the grounds
behind the hotel though. The glass was quite nice, only flawed in a few places,
but nice. There were plants in planters on this inside, transitioning the
plants from the outside in to make it feel more comfortable and less sterile.
The white paint was noticeably absent, instead it was a soft brown stain
matching the trees around the outside.

Apparently most of the men in the hotel were in the bar for some
reason. They had the luncheon room to themselves. It was warm, the sun hadn't
come around but it wasn't too hot. Still Jerry took off his coat and hung it on
the back of the chair.

They ordered a light lunch and made small talk. The admiral went
into the meeting expecting to talk about himself but found out much to his
chagrin that Jerry and his boss were more interested in the colonies history.
Sprite fed him what data was available in his Encyclopedia Galactica. He then
got into the history of Thanksgiving, going back to the colonists on Earth.

The reporter was amused. “You read all this in a book?” he asked
as Irons took a sip of coffee to keep hydrated.

“Yes and no, some in school,” Irons replied with a shrug. “I
admit, I never did get to Plymouth rock, I was too busy when I visited Earth.”

The reporter looked at him with a hint of pity in his expression.
“No, I'm um...” he started to get up.

“Of course that was oh, seven hundred and eighty odd years ago. I
was only on Earth briefly, less than a week. I was between deployments and
waiting for my next ship to come in. They were late,” the admiral explained and
shrugged.

The reporter blinked at him. He smiled. “Have a seat,” he said
indicating the chair the reporter had vacated in his urge to leave. Irons
placed his right hand out in the center of the table, palm up. A holo of Earth
spun to life there. Jerry's eyes went wide in surprise. Not in seeing the holo,
he'd seen them, but in seeing one coming from a hand, and most likely someone
with implants. Someone like Nohar, that Neotiger he'd tried and tried to get
interviews with but had so far been thwarted.

Fascinated the reporter sank slowly back into the chair. “You
really were there?” he asked, voice dropping into a reverent whisper. He
couldn't help slipping out of his normal reporter objectivity.

“Twice.” He went into the story of his leave, trying to keep it
interesting but not embellishing it. “The second time was oh, twenty years
later. I was there for a conference on yard management.”

“Oh.” The reporter looked dazed. “So, you're um, a sleeper.” The
admiral nodded. “I, um, forgot that.”

“If you have access to a computer I can download a great deal of
information for you. Call it background material,” the admiral suggested. Jerry
Richards nodded.

“You know what, here,” the admiral said, pulling out a flash chip
in a plastic sleeve a square centimeter in size. “I've been giving this out to
the various communities. It's a copy, well, my copy of the Encyclopedia
Galactica as well as some other things. I've bookmarked a few interesting
things for people to read.” He handed the chip over.

The reporter took it slowly and looked at it, turning it over in
his hand. “What do I do with it?” he asked, unfamiliar with the device. Usually
IT handled the few precious computers the planet had on hand.

“Put it in an e-reader. Either a flat screen or a holo emitter
will do,” the admiral explained. “See if your editor has one or your local
library branch if your news agency doesn't have one available. Hopefully they
will become available to you soon.”

The reporter nodded. “Thank you. What was your name again?”

“Irons. John Henry Irons. Fleet Admiral of the Federation Navy,”
Irons replied, getting up with the reporter. The reporter blinked, hand out.
Irons took it and shook it firmly, amused that he had shocked the man into
dropping his jaw again. “I'll be on planet for a week or so. Look me up if
you'd like to talk again,” he said.

“I'll um... do that. I think,” the reporter said, clearly dazed.
He stumbled into a chair on his way out.

...*...*...*...*...

“A little bit of PR,” Sprite said smugly after the reporter left.
She was pleased about the wireless microcomputer the admiral had handed over.
With that hooked into the media's computer network she would be able to tap
into their files. She felt like she was going stir crazy with so very little to
access. When the admiral went to bed she cataloged the various conversations
she had overheard, picking out anything of interest. It still wasn't enough
though.

“Maybe. Good or bad, it was amusing,” Irons replied quietly. “What's
next?”

“Well, we've been informed that the delivery date has been pushed
back to after the holiday. It seems the shipper shuts down for the holiday.”

“Lovely. Okay, so what else can we do?”

“Go walk about?” she suggested. The admiral smiled.

“An admirable idea. I'll take you up on that.”

“Wait, you will?” Sprite asked, clearly surprised. She'd
calculated that the admiral would sulk for a short bit and then find some
engineering project to get his hands into.

“Sure. We're going to be trapped in a small ship for five months,
it's a good idea to stretch our legs don't you think?”

“Since I don't have real ones, I don't see the need.”

“But I do. And since I can, why not. Maybe we can find something
interesting to fix.”

“Now that's the admiral I know,” Sprite replied with a chuckle.

“What?” he asked, looking up in confusion and surprise.

“Nothing,” she replied, chuckling again.

...*...*...*...*...

Jerry shook his head, clearly stunned and realizing it right off
as he walked in a daze to his hotel. He had to get a hold of Perry, Irons was
here. That name was familiar. Definitely familiar, he'd heard several stories
of what happened in Pyrax. Now he didn't take with what some of the nasty ones
were saying, Knox news had a way of both staying balanced and getting to the
truth. From the reports he'd gotten someone had done a bang up job of sullying
the admiral's reputation, dumping a truck load of mud over him.

Irons had done everything in his power to fight it, but Jerry knew
from experience that the truth was one of the first casualties in battles like
that. Eventually if you were persistent enough and if you had enough evidence
it would win out in the long term, but there would be a germ of distrust and
skepticism that would forever hover over the man like a cloud.

Funny how that happened. Even when you're proven innocent the
people who make the accusations get off without so much as a slap on the wrist
while you go on trying to pull your life back together.

According to the report Irons had dumped the full video of
everything that had happened onto the local net before he'd gone into exile.
Yes, he thought, looking at the chip now with a little foreboding. Yes he'd
have to think carefully before using Irons as a source. He didn't want to be
tainted himself.

After a long moment he finally had another thought. He connected
it to the name of the person who healed that woman Henrietta. She'd described
the fellow to him, and he fit that description. She'd also said he had a hit
out on him, that Ole Blue himself was gunning for him. Yes, this was definitely
going to have to be handled with kid gloves indeed.

...*...*...*...*...

Doctor Salt looked at his two partners and narrowed his eyes. “You
think this is a good idea?” he asked.

Robby Daniels looked up from tying her shoe lace. She unlike
ninety percent of the female population preferred blue jeans and sensible shoes
over skirts, dresses and high heels. No woman wanted to be on her feet for a
day or so in high heels. She ignored the sidelong looks she got, and the whispered
accusations of her being a tom boy. As long as Sam liked her in the jeans she
didn't care. He did, always taking the time to admire her legs and backside
when he thought she wouldn't notice. She blushed slightly at that thought.
Besides, they were comfortable. “She said we've got the holiday week off
remember?” She checked to make sure her ponytail hadn't slipped.

“Two weeks,” Sam said, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms
around her. He hugged her. She straightened, smiling at him.

“Two weeks?” she asked, eyes slightly wide. “And how did you get
Helen to agree to that?” she demanded. The director would never let them out of
her sight for more than a few days. A weekend was the best they usually got.

He grinned. “My little secret. Besides, Paco has the mess in that
town in hand, nothing else is brewing, let's go get lost little lady.”

“Oh definitely a worthy aspiration,” she teased, still smiling. He
kissed her, then was jerked off balance as their dog moved to chase a squirrel.
They laughed as the leash wrapped around them, trapping them together briefly.

Robby laughed, shaking his head. “Sam, Sam, Sam...”

Sam grumbled, getting control of the dumb mutt. “You still okay
with dropping us off?” he asked, turning to Doctor Salt. It was a bit of irony
for a black man to bear the last name Salt of all things. Salt didn't seem to
mind. He was a damn good pilot and general medic. He wasn't a specialist, but
he'd picked up enough by helping Paco La Plaz, Doctor Ivanov, and the Daniels
to know his way around an improvised lab these days.

“Sure, as long as Helen doesn't track me down and make me go after
you two if she needs you,” he said. “I don't do wandering through the bush
looking for you.” The two made a face at him. Robby even stuck her tongue out
at him. “Come on, I've got the small bush plane rented.”

“Coming,” Robby said, tying her red bandana around her neck and
then gathering up her pack. She put it around her shoulders, adjusted the
straps, and then bounced to make sure everything was secure. Even their dog was
carrying a load. She grabbed her walking stick. Sam had the gun, where they
were going few people liked to go. It was the back woods, far from people. As
far away as they could get.

“You sure this is a bright idea? Losing two of the best virologists
on the planet?”

“Only two of the best? Whatever will we do? There is more of us
now that Paco is on-board,” Sam teased. “Say, when are you going to get your
specialty?”

“When I've got the time to actually sit my butt in a class room,”
Salt growled back shaking his head. “I keep having to play taxi pilot to you
and the others remember?” he sighed. “Come on, let's go,” he said, waving them
onward past a guy in a gray coverall.

...*...*...*...*...

“So now what?” Sprite asked. “Another sightseeing day?” Sprite
asked as he turned to see a trio of people with a large dog headed off towards
the nearby airport. Two of the people had camping back packs on and were
holding hands. Camping, he thought and then snorted.