The hold on this worked helped immensely. Wow! My publisher is done due to a buy out of Writer's Showcase, so I need an agent for both works. This one is even juicier, I think with great suspense and action and my ever-underlying romance theme. Pass it along though reading the first book might be imperative.
Introduction
To: Admiral Patrick O’Hara
Commander- Penal Station, Cassini Two
From: Arvin Lansing
Director- Saturn Hydrogen Operations, Cassini Three
RE: Changes in Cassini Two Operations and Personnel
Admiral,
First, I would like to repeat to you my condolences over your daughter, Ryukyu’s death. She was the finest commander that I have ever worked with, and will be nearly impossible for the Culture to replace. I will do my very best to fill her ample boots. I need to begin this dialogue with a request for your assistance. Please bear with me.
Your daughter’s death was a direct result of the Kowalski papers that you personally brought to the Culture’s attention eighty years ago. It has been suggested that Brother James himself gave these papers to you. I admire the closeness that you experienced with the leader of humanity at such an early age. I have never admired the relationship that you kept with Ryukyu O’Hara- your daughter.
It is Ryukyu’s memory that has brought all of us to this point in time. I wish that we could work together in her memory, though the possibility is rather far fetched. I realize that you regret what your daughter did to you when she sentenced you to a life of imprisonment on Cassini Two. Twenty some odd years in hell has ground any semblance of fatherly love to non-existence, I’m sure.
With that said, I hope that your service can be counted on under my command at least as well as it has been for Ryukyu. The same rewards and punishments will be in force, though I am counting on our being able to have better communications in the future. I hope that this is understood completely.
I am sending you two new prisoners. Their dossiers will arrive with them in three days. They were both involved in the investigation of the Kowalski papers that ended in your daughter’s death. Your will controls their destinies, but I might suggest that you take a moment to reflect upon their abilities.
Stanley Merton is a cyborg. His ability to communicate with life support systems on Cassini Two may prove invaluable. Lower personnel losses means increased output and the Culture needs to get our hydrogen-fueled ships back in service as quickly as possible.
The other prisoner, Marie Cherillo, seems to have an unknown value to the Culture itself. Glazium Rush Federated Products weaned Miss Cherillo on Culture milk so that she would be the one to discover Brother James’ secret in the Kowalski papers. Obviously, the Culture has decided that the secret of Brother James’ underground ties in the early 21st century is a secret that will never be told- not in OUR world anyway.
Miss Cherillo has also demonstrated an uncanny knack with External Atmospheric Control Vehicles (EACV’s) that could come in handy repairing the hull on Cassini Two. Again- that decision is in your hands, Admiral, but I would suggest that you make use of both of these prisoner’s abilities to the fullest potential.
I await your response for our continued dialogue with great anticipation of a successful relationship.
Sincerely,
Arvin Lansing, Director of Saturn Operations
REPLY
To: Arvin Lansing
Director- Saturn Hydrogen Operations, Cassini Three
From: Admiral Patrick O’Hara
Commander- Penal Station, Cassini Two
RE: Memo referring to Changes in Cassini Two Operations and Personnel
Director
Piss off and die you skinny little queer!
Chapter One
As usual, I wasn’t planning to have a problem. It just kind of happened- again. The middle of a Friday afternoon and here I am standing at Jamal’s SuperSave again. I’m waiting to buy my 7,231st through 7,240th opportunities to win my financial freedom in the Florida lottery. My life has changed a lot in the last year and a half, but I still keep buying my same ten chances that I have bought since the state started this crap shoot for me.
I feel as though I may have begun to fall into a rut since the death of my best friend Daniel Newman. The drinking and the parties are getting to be a problem. As a nightclub owner, I don’t need the risk that comes with this behavior at all. Plus, since the newsies and the Tarpon Springs Police Department have placed me up against the wall as their pin-up boy, I really should be more careful. Mom and Dad would hate to see me messed up in a car accident because of my drinking as well- much less my children.
I just returned from North Port, Florida where my two children live. Andrea is 17 and Casey II is 15. We have just spent the past two weeks in Orlando – ya know- Disneyworld, the Orlando Magic, and a Vince Gill concert. I blew a wad that I would have never believed I ever could have been able to carry on my offspring. Partly, I was able to do this because of the bar and nightclub that Danny had left for me when he had died. Partly, I had done this out of guilt. I hadn’t seen much of the kids since everything blew up on me two years ago.
There was a time when this money could have made all of the difference in my involvement with my kids, but that seems like ancient history now. I have been the owner of the nightclub in Tarpon Springs for the last two years and it is doing a fine business. My best friend, Danny Newman, left the club to me after his murder. The bar is now called Club Go. Danny was a swinger of mammoth proportions and had named the place Club A Go Go, but in the name of modernization and the cost for replacing some broken neon lighting, I decided the shorter version was more up to date. The change helped the clientele with their transition to my ownership also, I might suggest.
I just dropped off the angels of my first marriage (only marriage at this point) with my ex-wife Jane. Therefore we had just completed our umpteenth discussion about discipline. I say that with the hope that you might understand that I do try to actively involve myself in my children’s futures. Since Mom has her own ideas on right and wrong regarding behavior, I feel a need to say my peace regularly regarding this factor in who they become. That’s pretty normal with divorced couples- at least those couples that have both parents actively participating in their children’s upbringing. As usual, Jane says that I am too hard on my kids. I don’t question how she treats them, but I don’t think I am a "hard ass" either. I hate to think that comment comes from her new husband. He seems like such a nice guy. Really, he does. And I try to make sure that I do like the gentleman.
Anyhow- on the drive back I picked up a pint of Dewar’s to knock the anger out of my memory unsuccessfully. I know that my speeches to the two of them don’t have much chance to take since I won’t see them again for four to six weeks after I drop them off. The anger actually grows in the thought that I will miss them so badly, more than in the fact that I can’t be sure that I got through to them. Though my mind is a million miles away and the bottle is empty in the back seat of my ’69 Duster, I remembered to stop at Jamal’s SuperSave before heading home. I’m still hoping to win the lottery.
I’m standing there waiting in line for Jamal to finish up with the customer in front of me, while I’m being annoyed by this skinny young kid behind me. He’s jukin’ and jivin’ back and forth like he has to use a toilet. Bad- real bad.
I just keep telling myself, "Casey, you were young and impatient once too." I’m not that old now. I’ll be 37 next month. But I was impatient too. Once.
Actually, my current love interest thinks I’m an impatient "hard ass" as well. That comes, in part, from how we met. She is a cop and I screwed up one of her cases in a big way. That case was the murder of Daniel Newman. Clearwater Police assigned her to investigate and by holding the word "mum" close to my heart, I messed with her job a bit too much. The press began a love-hate affair with me since I was responsible for finding Danny’s killer, so my name alone can bring some business to Club Go (usually the wrong kind, I hate to admit), but it causes great strains in my relationship with Jennifer Weaver. I’m sure that the rest of the cops in Clearwater’s force weren’t very kind to her about our relationship either. She saved my life once too.
I feel a little bit itchy with the juke and jiver at my rear. So I turn nonchalant- like to get a look at the kid. He is really beginning to annoy me now that I’m taking the opportunity to survey the entire situation. There is a van parked outside of the door waiting for him. I’d like to figure that the kid is going to pick up a pack of smokes and scoot. He looks about 23 years old, tan, blond frost on brown hair with a silver ball posted on his nostril. Dark shades over his eyes and a "Marky Mark" kind of thin, muscular build. His hands are buried in large black parachute pants pockets.
My spider sense is tingling again.
Shit.
I have achieved two fifth degree black belts in the martial arts. My exercise program is highly practiced in these disciplines. Even the dull edge of an alcohol buzz won’t hide this punk from me. I wholly believe that my training sharpens my observation skills under duress and what I am observing at this exact moment is quite distressing. Let me break it down a little.
This hip-hop hotty is standing in a convenience store that to me seemed a bit cool for temperature. I can tell you right now, that I can usually sweat at the drop of a hat. Must come from all of the water that I drink- with or without the Scotch. Anyway, the young man was perspiring as though he had just become warm. No running beads, but droplets were forming on his forehead. Remember that I was getting this from a glimpse, but that I am a trained observer.
He is acting in a way that I might call "twitchy". He keeps looking around a lot. Not exactly at anything or for anything. He just keeps changing his targets. This sense of Juke and Jive "hunting" for a problem leads to other revelations. He could have seemed to anyone like he was on some kind of speed, and maybe he was. If so, I would have bet a glass pipe that it was "crack" and he had just hit some up. Even if Juke and Jive hadn’t sucked on glass, the young man would be considered an obvious exhibition of a bundle of nervous energy- at least to me he would.
It is not so remarkable that I would notice or recognize such a distinction with this young fella. In part it comes from the business I own. Another facet comes from missing some secreted omissions that had led to my current lack of a best friend. I own the nightclub, plus another cop had caused Danny’s murder with a taste for about two million dollars worth of heroin. I still have problems with the fact that I missed out in saving Daniel’s life. With all of that going for me, my spider sense tends to tune right in when there are druggies around. They spell trouble in the bar business unless you set yourself up for that clientele.
I recognized the threat. Something was in Juke and Jive’s right hand. Yes, both of the character’s hands were in his pockets. I made myself aware that there could be a problem of a more drastic nature than just my standing in front of an addict. Though I was drafting all of my activity from the one glimpse, I clearly remembered that Juke and Jive’s left pocket carried less volume than his right- much less. The other sign was the shape of the pocket. I was fairly convinced that this young gentleman had a revolver in his right hand in his pocket. Odds were that the pistol would be a snub nosed .38 pistol.
Standing behind me, he was waiting for me to transact my business with Jamal. Jamal was waiting also, so I began to casually fumble with my pocket and then my wallet. As I did my own inventory of the surrounding situation, I took a mental snap shot of the panel van waiting just beyond the doorway. Every body seemed to be gaining in impatience, with me being the focal point.
Damn it.
The last time that I had gotten into a situation at the SuperSave, had began the whole series of events leading through Danny’s death and the discovery of the killer. It had all ended with a severe emotional and physical pain on my part. I wasn’t quite over coping with the effects even yet, though I was planning to lighten up on the drinking soon. A series of operations and treatments suggested for my left shoulder was another effect. Daniel’s murderer, Officer Phil Georgiou, had tried to get me killed when I got too close to discovering him.
The van outside was running and inside it was another young man with a ski cap and sunglasses on. They both wore white tank tees. Decisions were going to have to be made very quickly. The first one was to try and look normal. Yeah, right.
I know what really annoys me about these things. And yes, they do seem to happen to me more often than they should. It’s bad enough that they keep happening around me. I just wish that I could be smart enough to walk away. Just once in a while… Nah. Never happen.
"Jamal, I need my regular ten numbers." I said watching the hip-hop out of the corner of my peripheral vision.
I expected him to wait until my business transaction was complete and I walked out of the store. The young man didn’t need an audience to rob a convenience store. For the moment, I was going to go along with his plan.
"It should be a good night at Club Go tonight, Mister Casey. Right?" Jamal usually said the same stuff when I was at the SuperSave- especially on a Friday. I mentioned that when Daniel had been alive, the bar had been known as "Club A Go Go". My head bartender, Robin and Ramon, my bouncer- best friend, had supported my choice to lose the retro-name hoping to draw in a slightly more hip crowd. The crowd looked pretty much the same to me though.
I kept my consciousness attached to the young man. I did not want to alarm Jamal, but I did need to wrap up my business quickly.
As he gave me my lotto tickets for my tenner, I said, "Summer months are tough in Florida bars, Jamal. We should do okay though."
My plan would take speed, surprise and accuracy. The first step was the most important. I had to be sure that this young man was actually holding the pistol that I believed was in his pocket. So, as I turned around towards him from the counter, I reached down with my right hand and grabbed his right wrist. I was surprised to find that the punk was already bringing the gun out of its hiding place. He was going to rob Jamal while I was still in the store?
Using instantaneous concentration and force, I yanked straight up with all my might. Out came the pistol in the punk’s hand. As the shocked young man’s hand was pointed directly above our heads, and he was saying "Hey!" I brought down my right arm decisively with a snap, and connected a sharp elbow just above the young man’s cheekbone. He folded and I bent down to pick up the dropped revolver with my left hand. This put Juke and jive and me out of the visibility of the van driver for a moment with him on the floor and me in a crouch.
My mind raced. I knew that I had maybe six steps to go out the door and get in front of the passenger window of the van. I had to move fast, since Juke and Jive’s buddy was likely to be packing heat too. I didn’t really care at that moment that the van- driving friend could have seen me deck Juke and Jive. It couldn’t matter less from this perspective. From my crouch, I was up, across the six steps and through the door of the SuperSave already. I noticed that Jamal had ducked down under the counter as I went through. The van was right in front of me as I stood to my full six foot two in front of the passenger window and six feet from the driver.
Something was just not right as I picked up the snub nose and pointed it into the van window. The driver looked over his sunglasses at me and seemed entirely relaxed with his jaw gaping wide open. I knew that I could have filled any tooth in his mouth that I chose to with the lead in the pistol I was pointing. Thank the good Lord for the great peripheral vision and reflexes that He gave me.
Out of the corner of my left eye, I caught movement just as I was going to say something to the driver. Shotgun barrel! I said "Aw, shit" instead.
Auto-pilot made my body disconnect from all of its joints. Gravity pulled me into a drop as heard "KABOOM" and the "KERASSSH" of the glass store window that was behind me. I won’t swear that I felt a strong breeze pass over my head, but I can’t tell you that I didn’t. At the bottom of my drop, I rolled to my left. I knew that the right direction would just put me in the view of the front windshield of the van and that made no sense to me. Unfortunately, "Ouch". Due to some of the previous injury to my left shoulder and the hard graveled asphalt of the parking lot, this hurt plenty.
I rolled three more times before standing. I ran six long steps toward a four- foot white wall that runs along side of Jamal’s SuperSave on the far side from the gasoline pumps. You might think that I could have hurdled over the relatively medium height wall, but I like to think I’m smart enough that I didn’t even try. As my body rolled head first over the wall, the shotgun blasted again. I felt one of my six hundred dollar gray alligator boots take what I hoped would only be some buck shot as I poured over to the other side. That would have been my ass if I had decided to hurdle the wall. I landed with two hundred pounds of "THUD".
I was stunned, but very aware. I checked the pistol in my hand should the shotgun wielder have gotten out of the van to finish me. I doubted he would, and this was certified by a couple of door "thumps" and the squeal of some van tires.
When I peeked up over the wall, the only sign that the van had been there was broken glass and the smoke and dust from their take-off. Looking down at the boot, I was pleased that it had only taken one ball that had hit right at the toe, though I was beginning to become pissed off that I had even taken that. Whew! I climbed back over the wall and headed for the store. I needed to check on Jamal.
I constantly amaze myself. My heart was racing. My body was sore. I was concentrating on getting my breathing under control. Jamal was on my mind, as a priority. But, I could have been a little more attentive to my surroundings.
"All right, Mister! One more step and I’m going to put a bullet in your backside. Drop the pistol. Now!!!" Shit.
Chapter Two
Marie woke up to her nightmare. She was still herself. She realized that she had been day dreaming of a time long ago- long before her current distress had begun. She saw her life before the visit to Titan like she had been Cinderella. Now she found herself doomed to cleaning up after the stepsisters for eternity. The Culture had caused of her endless dilemma and she couldn’t help but fear that they were behind her new concerns too. Somehow.
She had been used for the majority of her own life by the powerful Culture. The Culture ran everything. Political, economic, anything that controlled the survival of mankind- everything. They had used Marie Cherillo, it seemed, from the moment that she had been born. They were using Marie now. The only difference was that now Marie knew about it.
In the past, a life long gone, Marie didn’t even have a clue.
Marie had been a historian. She had been set up since college to be a historian. Marie believed that she had been a great one. In fact, she had thought that she was the best scholar available with knowledge specific to the late twentieth and emerging twenty- first century that the Culture could rely upon. In college the Culture had steered Marie towards this expertise without letting her know it. She had not discovered the organization’s treachery until her last assignment had changed her world forever.
The massive organization that was responsible for directing mankind’s destiny from behind a dark cloak had once seemed so benevolent to Marie Cherillo.
The year is 2249 A.D., and Marie Cherillo has become a slave on a decrepit space station orbiting Saturn. The name of the station- Cassini Two. Marie had been coerced to take the long trip to Saturn, and originally had been aboard Cassini Three- the White Rock. Now Marie was one of twenty million prisoners sharing accommodations on the hulk known as Black Rock. Only a handful of people knew that any life existed on Cassini Two.
Marie was, at the moment, hammering out the large plates that she would use in her assigned profession on Cassini Two. Basically, because of a knowledge she had been given by a woman she was forced to kill, Marie had become a space blacksmith- sort of.
Her adventure had begun ages ago at university with her lover at the time, Stanley Merton. Then, Roger Chambourd, an instructor at the university, had stolen her heart. Roger had fed Marie’s young lust for affection mightily for eighteen years and then disappeared into a void when Marie had said the relationship was through. The long affair had been a farce that she would learn about painfully after her consignment to space with Culture promises of great reward.
As Marie put the last four by five sheet of repair metal into the mobile pack, she remembered the treachery. Marie realized now that Roger was only keeping his word to the Culture to honor and serve their needs and not Marie’s. He had died a horrible death as a consequence of his involvement. And Marie still had no idea of the network of schemes that had manipulated her destiny until Stanley Merton had returned to her to open her eyes again. She wondered if she should have left them closed. That would have been Marie’s death though.
Marie put on her grubby long-coat and left her equipment compartment to walk to her tram station. She thought about the new reading material that she had been given and checked to be sure that she had placed it in her waist bag. Her supervisor had delivered it to her that morning and she had read the chapter instead of taking her lunch. Her ability to decipher the twenty- first century language had not ebbed.
The tram would take Marie home to the hovel that she shared with Stanley. They were prisoners though, so it could be much worse. Hell, the Culture could have eliminated them entirely.
Marie could hate Stanley for giving her a knowledge that had destroyed her comfortable existence. Her awareness of the Culture’s scheme had banished Marie to the floating prison known as Cassini Two three months earlier. Stanley Merton had been forced to share the same quarters. Marie was grateful that Stanley had saved her life from the hands of a power hungry Culture maven. He had also given Marie the opportunity, if you could call it that, to take some of her life back from the Culture.
All of that effort had cost Stanley Merton so much for so long a time. Since their academic studies and young love, Stanley had been an "operative" for the Culture. Basically, Stanley had done their dirty work. He had discovered that the man who had replaced him as Marie’s lover was also an operative- but of a very different nature.
Roger Chambourd was a lover, while Stanley had been a killer. While Stanley had killed for the Culture’s strength and survival, Roger had manipulated women for the same Culture advancement. Marie did not approve of either method, but she had found out that Roger had been her lover as an "assignment". That sort of thing could effect a woman’s self esteem if it hadn’t been for Roger’s bloody demise. Stanley had spent a great deal of devotion, not entirely to Marie, seeing to it that Roger could not continue or restart this mission once Marie arrived at Saturn.
Marie knew now that Stanley had begun a quest on the day that he had discovered Roger’s treachery. Stanley needed to get to the bottom of his question. "Why would the Culture have taken Marie away from him?" He discovered much more than he had bargained for.
On the path of Stanley’s journey, he had even modified himself for the Culture. Stanley had become a cyborg- a human being who was enhanced with robotics and computer assistance. This "improvement" was of great value to the Culture and had cost Stanley the use of his legs. The information systems and access had been enough to motivate Stanley to volunteer for the cybernetic procedure. Marie didn’t see it, but she hoped that the price had been worth Stanley’s investment. She tried valiantly not to pity this poor creature but it was endlessly difficult.
The high-speed tram was coming to Marie’s stop, some ninety kilometers from her workspace. Not only was Cassini Two a miracle in penal colony technology, but also in size. Not to forget mentioning- the fact that the space barge was supposed to be a DEAD man-made satellite. Marie disembarked and began to walk the two remaining kilometers to her home.
Marie and Stanley had become criminals by killing the commander of the Culture’s fuel station- Cassini Three. Ryukyu O’Hara was a major cog in the wheel of conspiracy. They had also been charged with the murder of Roger Chambourd. Both of them had died on the Titan scientific station- and yes- Stanley and Marie had been there when they did. Ryukyu O’Hara had died while trying to murder Marie after Ryukyu had beheaded Roger on the station. The Culture was as aware of the true facts regarding this case as they were of the danger that Marie and Stanley now could provide to the Culture’s stability.
The Culture had organized the entire affair. They had probably even led Stanley to request Marie Cherillo’s assistance with the "book" once they knew that Stanley was on the track of their secret. Ryukyu and Roger were waiting for them when they arrived at Cassini Three and Marie and Stanley were not even aware that they were the enemy. The two foes had managed the secret engineering base for the Culture on which Stanley and Marie now resided. The supposedly dead Cassini Two made all of the riches of Saturn accessible to the Culture by maintaining, repairing, and constructing the space shuttle transports that would mine and ship hydrogen for their cause.
Of course, none of that really made much of a difference. As far as the real world was concerned, Marie Cherillo and Stanley Merton had died directly after murdering the two Culture operatives. Their existence on Cassini Two was unknown to the entire world that had existed for them before their respective missions to Cassini Three had begun. No one would ever look for them on Cassini Two.
Cassini Two, "The Black Rock", had died for the real world long, long ago.
As Marie passed a street vendor selling Empathon, the designer drug of the day for the inhabitants of Cassini Two, she considered the imaginative beginnings of the Black Rock and the man who had become king. She thought for a moment how easy it would be for her to fall into the breaches of drug induced stupor in such a cruel existence.
Purposefully, Patrick O’Hara- Ryukyu’s father- had put together the lie of Cassini Two, thirty-six years ago. He had been the demon. He had built it and manned it, and then he made humanity believe that it had died. Unexplainably, the 22 million persons on board had died with it.
But they had not died. They had been chosen by the Culture for their abilities and talents to be placed on board Cassini Two at the time of the incident that had never happened. The Culture allowed the people of Earth to mourn, and then to complete the building of Cassini Three. A bigger, more sufficient, hydrogen fuel station to feed the energy needs of humanity from the Saturn atmosphere.
The Black Rock repaired and modified all of the necessary mining equipment and space transports to keep the White Rock in operation. Cassini Two kept Cassini Three running smoothly through an impervious veil of secrecy. Only a handful of Culture members and the directors of Glazium Rush, the company that ran the transport system, knew of the station’s life. Marie had broken the veil and now she had been swallowed up by the Culture to continue the secret.
Marie was coming to the turn down her own passage that led to her domicile. Her "street", as she had learned to call it from the few co-habitants that would speak with her, didn’t frighten her as it once had. It did seem darker on this trip though- as dark as the history that had brought Marie to the far reaches of the solar system.
Marie had found a key to a Culture secret in the assignment that Stanley had steered to her abilities. Stanley knew that Marie had the knowledge to find the key. It was locked away in an ancient novel from the turn of the twenty-first century. The story’s hero had written a tale of power, lust and violence. It was the account of a night club owner named Casey Kowalski, and one passage unlocked untold secrets of the Culture that dated back two hundred and fifty years to date. Ryukyu and Roger had paid for that secret with their lives. Stanley and Marie had paid for it with their freedom.
In a very subtle way, the story had disclosed that the hero of earth’s rebirth for humanity- Brother James- had been a prop. The man had saved countless millions of lives after the Upheaval, but he had been nothing like the hero that he had been made up to be. Marie had made these assumptions since she had first discovered the truth about Brother James. She believed that the Culture knew that she would discover these truths as well, now.
In the year of our Lord, 2028, the earth experienced a horrible astronomical incident that wiped nearly one third of the existing life off of its face. Asteroids, four of them henceforth called "The Horsemen", struck the earth after being deflected from the solar belt by a larger Apollo, called 1997xf11. The world of the day fell to warlords and turmoil.
Three years later, Brother James emerged with weapons and food surplus and saved the world from destroying itself. Basically, Brother James restored mankind to peace and harmony, allowing a new age for man’s development.
The discovery in the Casey Kowalski autobiographical account was that Brother James had been born of criminals. The indictment was not that big of a deal in itself. So what? Until a person considered the ramifications that keeping such a fact secret for two hundred and fifty years attaches to that. The Culture proved that this knowledge could be dangerous to the Culture’s existence by keeping the fact a protected secret. The Culture must have known all of this well before Marie had uncovered the proof. They must have known.
So, why would you keep this a secret for two hundred and fifty years? Why would you squash the discovery of this seemingly unimportant fact, two hundred and fifty years later? Marie could not answer those questions, but she wished that she knew.
Marie thought to herself, "This is why I carry the new volume of Casey Kowalski today- because I have more questions now than when I finished the first account." She reached into the large waist purse pocket and felt the binding on the second book. The texture gave her a warm feeling in her heart that she would never explain to anyone.
Marie was aware that there were other mysteries regarding Brother James that might underlie the one that she had uncovered. For example- how had Brother James managed to stockpile the weapons and foods that he had used to recreate the world after the Horsemen had arrived? Marie had also considered that someone must have provided protection for Brother James before the cataclysm. Was the connection in Book Two?
Marie could only guess that the Culture was not ready to allow the knowledge to become public because the story could open the gates to revolt. Marie was not sure that made a lot of sense though, since most humans were happy with the state of affairs as they were. The ever-benevolent Culture had protected humanity through soft-handed advice for ages. She thought that there was more to the story and the one chapter she had read since her arrival proved it. Kowalski had written more, and it might lead up to some more answers.
Marie could remember when she had been a very self-centered lady. The Culture’s ability to inflict that sense of well being that is so necessary for people to be selfish would be very difficult for Marie to forget. Especially now that the same hands had taken away that sense of well being.
Things had changed since her awakening to her new home of colorless Cassini Two. Grays and metal colors and faded colors of thirty-six years of age tormented the inhabitants at every turn. Brother James had never espoused such unethical means towards Culture success. With the discovery of Brother James’ origins, Marie and Stanley had become enemies of the state. The Culture could have very easily ordered that their publicized deaths become a fact. Stanley had proven that with a lifetime of ending the lives of enemies of the state. He reminded Marie of this fact regularly.
Marie and Stanley had both cut themselves out comfortable positions aboard Cassini Two. Life could have become a great deal worse. Marie tried to pray for her thankfulness regularly. Sometimes that was very difficult. Her prayers tended to remind her of the religion that Brother James had espoused.
After the deaths of Roger and Ryukyu on Titan- the large Saturn moon with its thick orange atmosphere- Arvin Lansing had brought the pair to Cassini Two. Arvin ran the whole show now that his predecessors had perished. He had been Ryukyu’s right hand man. She remembered with a shiver the leading from the shuttle by armed guards and their deposit with the Section Commander. She had felt Vasilly Federov’s venom even before he had shown any of his under belly to her.
Before they had been deposited on the "Black Rock", Marie had thought that it would be run like a prison barge. She felt that she knew what would be ahead and expected whips and the like. It really was not nearly that horrible. The people on the station depended entirely upon each other for survival. This fact made them seem to be more giving, Marie supposed. She had only been on board for three months though. Few had offered assistance to the newcomers, and most of their accommodations had come from the powers in charge. Vasilly Federov, as the Admiral’s warden, took his position very seriously and seemed more than willing to take advantage also.
The White Rock, Cassini Three, had been set up strictly for serviceable purposes. It was essentially a military style installation. A person would travel two years or so to get there in suspended animation, and then serve two to five years depending upon the contract, then spend two years returning home. The average person would be well paid and spend only a small percentage of time compared to their average life expectancy of one hundred and sixty years. Comforts were adequate though limited, and the rewards were substantial upon one’s return to earth. Marie’s rewards would have been exceptional once she had returned to her home. That had been the Culture’s ploy, in part.
But, the personnel were all temporary. Only the command positions were permanently stationed. Arvin was the only living permanent personnel that Marie knew of now, and she was sure that he would be replaced one day too.
Cassini Two was very different. Every person who was sentenced to the "Black Rock" knew that his or her existence had vanished. They would live the rest of their lives there. They would even create families there. One third of the personnel on the craft were descendants now. So the inhabitants had created a society of their own based upon their simple needs. Marie thought of the simple needs that she and Stanley had managed to feed with the small apartment she was within a half a kilometer from now. Pitiful by her previous standards but comfortable enough now. After all of this soul searching, she knew that she would punish herself with push-ups upon her arrival at home. Her physical condition had become sustained by the mental toughness that repetitive weight training could imbue.
The Culture had created the "Black Rock" experience to cope with some very basic needs. The Culture needed the fuel of Saturn to continue to grow their revived Earth. A familiar though more microcosmic concept had existed throughout history regarding energy. The "Gulf War" of Casey Kowalski’s lifetime was based upon the need for energy. As a historian she had to understand that need.
The Culture had no problem finding or getting the hydrogen fuel since the atmosphere of Saturn was phenomenally rich with the stuff. Cassini One had proven the value of the mining and the limited difficulty with transport via space. There was one problem though.
The Culture could always manage to find pilots and support personnel for the stellar missions. There was even some pride to returning home from a mining mission. But the real expertise that would always be required for the success of the energy transfer from Saturn would be for equipment and maintenance.
Wear and tear on the ships and shuttles was not actually very bad in space, but it was there. The fleet’s maintenance was imperative to the Culture’s goals. And training to repair or modify such systems was exceptionally time consuming. Patrick O’Hara had answered this need quite adequately by creating a society of people who would be derived from the best engineers and maintenance personnel that the Culture had to offer. And since the make believe accident, one that ended all life on Cassini Two and created the most productive prison in unknown history, the Culture mission continued virtually unabated. No citizen knew about the powerful cloud of subterfuge but the highest ranks of the Culture and now, of course, Arvin Lansing.
So the dark society and prisoner community had made the station for a lifetime at Cassini Two as comfortable as it could be. Arboretums flourished throughout C-2’s one hundred and twelve floors and families took care of homes. The homes were not houses, they were apartments, but the feel was entirely different than on the C-3 installation. Black Rock was a community rather than an installation.
The community was built on severe punishment for disciplinary matters. Rank and file would be understood as if in the military. Marie knew that her new Kowalski novel must have been kept by a very high ranking official. She also knew that the official must have a strong desire for Marie to read the new novel. If she did not read the Kowalski sequel, she would not need to worry about prison.
To have a prison on board a craft whose purpose was to be life-long interment would be ridiculous. Space and personnel requirements made such a concept untenable at best. So, Patrick O’Hara had deemed punishment for breaking his laws to be very simple- either community service for very minor sins against the community- or death for any serious sins against the community- or more so against his regime. Who would decide? Everyone would decide or he himself would turn a thumb down.
The concept still boggled Marie’s mind. If you injured or intentionally maimed any person’s ability to be productive in any way, the entire population of your home would very likely demand that you be killed. Death occurred by a chamber, which was opened to the void of space. Instantaneous death. No cruelty and no remorse. Criminals died for the better of the imprisoned society that was Cassini Two.
Marie and Stanley had become survivors. Marie would do all she could to see to it that their survival would continue.
It was strange. Life had been good to them in spite of the facts. Marie had fallen helplessly in love with Stanley again. She could not expect any normalcy or relations. They were not going to have children but they could be as happy as they could be. They had each other. Though Stanley made it very clear that the love would never be requited.
He told her after the rescue and imprisonment. "Marie, I did what I did because I loved you when we were in school. I can’t deny that. But my obsession with the Culture went so much deeper than that. Don’t confuse my feelings in college with the cyborg you see in front of you now." Stanley wanted to be clear though emotion rimmed his logic. "I gave up on loving anyone when I volunteered for this chair and that includes being in love with you. I can’t love you as anything more than as a friend, Marie. It simply isn’t possible for me."
Since their arrival, he had become a Cassini Two phenomenon, oddly enough. He had been commissioned the rank of captain and was working with the life support systems. In Stanley’s first month, the system had run better than any of the inhabitants could remember.
The community was embracing Marie as well as could be expected also. Her learned capacity for words of the late twentieth century had some real value to the C-2 people. Most of the hydrogen theory that had created the engines and motors being repaired and modified by the station had been built upon that time frame. Her "reading" ability would be a continual boon to the engineering masterminds of her New World. She had even begun teaching more and more children to read.
Arvin Lansing had authorized a small office for the purpose of teaching chosen youngsters age 12 to 14 the art of reading more comprehensively. This art had gotten her into this mess, but it was an art that she truly did love. She would begin with forty students in a few weeks. She believed that the Admiral had something else entirely planned for Marie until then.
The seldom remembered but never forgotten Admiral. The Admiral was the man who was at the top of the heap at Cassini Two. No one ever saw him but everyone knew who he was. He directed all of the work, and all of the rewards. A very dirty job that somebody had to do. Occasionally, he would also direct an inhabitant into the Chamber for execution.
He had the only direct contact with Arvin Lansing ever, unless Arvin decided he wanted to contact an inhabitant. To try to break this rule would get a "citizen" into the Chamber instantly.
Only the Admiral could have sent Marie the chapter of a second novel by Casey Kowalski.
As Marie turned the last corridor to her home, she noticed one of the small neighbor girls across from her cell. The girl was frozen in absolute terror looking at the doorway to Marie’s cell and back to Marie. As Marie started to look towards the source of the small angel’s terror, she was seized by a tremendous grip and thrown against the cold hard metal wall. She pressed her eyes closed with pain as she felt the pressure on both of her shoulders. Marie could feel a grinding begin with her tormentor’s groin pressing forcefully against her womanhood. The surprise of the attack had splayed her legs around the waist of Vasilly Federov. She smelled his heated breath on her cheek as he began to speak.
Vasilly was the messenger for the Admiral as well as the Section Commander for Marie and Stanley. Everyone on Cassini Two knew Vasilly Federov. He was easy enough to recognize without his hardening manhood pressed against Marie’s uncomfortable crotch. Marie thought of the poor little girl witnessing this act of brutality. Only her fear held back her anger.
Vasilly was nearly seven feet tall and almost five hundred pounds. He was sheer muscle. The Admiral allowed him to eat as much as he wanted because the Admiral wanted people to know Vasilly when they saw him. His brown beard and slightly large eyes could have made him handsome if he were not so immense. The shaved skull was mildly attractive. Vasilly always looked scary though. He rarely smiled.
He seethed in her face with hot acrid breath. "Miss Cherillo. I bring you a package from the Admiral. He wishes for you to begin with it as soon as you open it." Vasilly said, "He also wants to meet with you to discuss the reading you have already done."
Marie had not said a word and now Vasilly pushed off of her and thudded a box against her chest. "He will meet with you soon." Vasilly smiled. She finally opened her eyes. The box had fell to the ground. It was a very non- descriptive box. When she looked up, Vasilly smiled at her and turned again to leave. As she bent down to retrieve the Admiral’s package, Marie turned to find the scared little girl before her.
"Missy Cherillo, you gotta be good! The tall dark man will come and get you when your momma and poppa can’t take care of you no more." The girl left a small blue flower in Marie’s hand and wiped away some tears before she ran away down the corridor.
Marie hastily keyed opened her door. She closed and bolted the door and sat upon her mangy couch. Marie began to breathe again as her own tears started to drizzle down her cheeks. As she regained her composure, she thought, "Bastard."
Stanley would be home in about three hours. Marie was not going to wait for him until then to open the package. It was from the Admiral.
On the top of the package, Marie pulled off a strip of tape. The box was filled with notebooks like the one in her jacket pocket. On top of the ledgers was a note:
MISS CHERILLO,
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR REVIEWING THE
WRITINGS THAT YOU WILL FIND INSIDE. YES, IT IS THE BOOK THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY BEGUN. I HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY THAT YOU MAY BE ABLE TO FIND SOME THINGS THAT I HAVE MISSED MYSELF. I DEMAND THAT YOU TRY. ONE MORE REQUEST- KEEP THIS BETWEEN US. I DO NOT WANT ANYONE ELSE TO KNOW THAT THIS EXISTS. MY THANKS ARE OFFERED IN ADVANCE OF YOUR SERVICES. VASILLY WILL BE AT YOUR DISPOSAL.
The Admiral.
Vasilly was also known to be very adept at putting people into the chamber. Marie would do her very best to comply with the Admiral’s wishes.
Excerpt
I hadn’t walked very far when a white Caprice Classic pulled in front of me. A little short-haired blond woman with glasses was driving. Freckles galore. It looked like a cop car.
"Get in, Casey. I’ll give you a ride to your car." She said.
The lady appeared to be about fifty and had virtually no accent. I wasn’t sure that taking a ride with a stranger was a good idea- even if it was a cop car.
"Get in. I won’t bite. We need to talk a while anyway."
Okay. So, I’m a dope. You must have figured that much out already. What do you think I did? I walked around the car and climbed in on the passenger side. Of course, I did. She drove off.
Not a cop. Instant recognition of something that was not quite right. A "PRESS" sign emblazoned the lady’s driver side visor. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, only less happy about it. Not another God damned newsie. Please, not another.
"Don’t get too jumpy, Casey. My name is Wilma Lucos- everybody calls me Minnie. Might have something to do with my height. That and the fact that I hate being called Wilma. I know that you don’t know me, but I think we ought to talk. Not now, but soon. I know that I don’t know how to shut up sometimes, and right now that’s a good thing. I’m a free lance newspaper journalist- kind of a hack- and I’ve been working out of Michigan, up around Windsor for a couple of months. I’d heard you were pretty sexy, but to tell you the truth, I don’t see it. I need to talk to you about an old acquaintance of yours- Dimitri Mavropoulos." Minnie said.
Well, the ride to my car was only about ten minutes, but I had the sneaky suspicion that this lady could have talked in machine gun-ese for an hour without a breath. Whew. All of that and she managed to cap it off with the one name that I least wanted to hear in the world. Mavropoulos had really bad connotations for my memory banks.
To start with, he was one of the ugliest looking human beings that I had ever seen. I first started calling him Ugly Vic, because he reminded me of a clone of the cook from television’s "Alice" show in the 1970’s- gone really really bad. Yech.
I was forced to learn a lot more about the guy because his nephew and Phil Georgiou were in cahoots on that heroin thing I mentioned earlier. Uncle Dimitri had come to Florida to meet my friend Daniel because his nephew, Theodore Mavropoulos, wanted to marry Danny’s daughter, Madonna Anderson- also the daughter of my head bartender, Robin. My life is very rarely dull, but this was quite a month when Daniel had died.
Anyway, I didn’t know it at the time, but Dimitri, who knew nothing about the heroin or his nephew’s involvement with Phil Georgiou, had a history of running with some truly nasty people. The "law" has salivated over him for at least the past 40 years and never tasted his breeches even once. A very dangerous and slippery character. Oh! And he doesn’t like me in the least.
After Danny’s death, I got real involved in putting all of the pieces together. In part, Theodore and his mother, Vicki (who might have had a thing going on with Dimitri), both died. I didn’t kill them, but I think that it is fair to say that Dimitri could hold me responsible for their deaths. So, to hear a stranger mention his name for any reason at all does make me a little bit nervous. At least a little bit.
"Lady. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you think we need to talk. I don’t know what you have to do with Mavropoulos. And I don’t want to be in your car." I said.
One, she was making me nervous with the Dimitri crap, but Two, she was driving like a lunatic.
"Oh, nonsense. I’ll have you to your car in a minute, Casey. Hell, I feel like I already know you anyway. I know that you don’t have any time to talk now. You’ve got to go open up your club. I’ll just drop you off and we can talk later- maybe I’ll stop by tomorrow and we can talk about this stuff after you close up the place or something." She said.
She was right we were almost… excuse me… we were at my car. Sheesh.
Book three in series. Excitement and tension begin on the first day of filming a Restoration drama on location at the historic Jacobean mansion, Ham House in Surrey.
