Guardian Stone 1: Stone Genesis (18 page)

Baranof was still trying to digest the information but went on gamely saying, "again the appearance would suggest a young woman in her 30's but the poise and presence suggest 40's."

Hank said, "This may have been an unfair question, Lasa-Dor, how old are you, which by the way is usually a question that is not asked in polite Earth society?"

Lasa-Dor replied, "I was born ten years after the fleet arrived at Antor II in Tau Ceti. Your year was 1523 so I would now be 491 of your years."

Baranof sat back clearly stunned and then slowly, one could see in his face that he had come to grips with what he had just heard. He stood up, looked at each of them quietly and then smiled at Hank and said, "My friend Henry, I have heard it said of your reputation that you do not give up easily on people. I have also talked to people who were present at your actions at Kajaki and their reports of the lengths you will go to aid, protect and help your friends and those you protect. And now today I see for myself what a fine devious mind you have to provide the tools you need to perform the former. You are the kind of person to whom I can give my loyalty. I would be honored to apply for a position in your fleet if you will still have me. I still miss my Anna and probably always will, but I think she would want me to do this. So what do I do now?"

Hank went over to him, gave him a bear hug and said, "Wonderful, but you must know that this idea was not mine, I wish it had been, it was Lasa-Dor's and I was more than happy to try it. I can't tell you how delighted I am to have you come with us." With that Lasa-Dor went over to him and kissed him on the cheek and said, "When your treatments and training are complete, I wish to be the one to show you around the station." There were tears in the old generals eyes.

Hank said, "We can go now if you wish and you can bring as much of your belongings as you would like. We can also arrange your quarters to look very much like what you have here. Barana tells me that your son has been informed of your decision and wants to know if you are agreeable to having him, his wife and two children as next-door neighbors they would be very pleased. I think that your granddaughter, little Anya, was the most excited. They were not going to apply as long as you did not and were not going to use that to pressure you into doing something that you did not want to do. You will see them grow and their children's children. Welcome aboard Grigori. Are we all ready to go, Lasa-Dor will explain what is next when we are up on the Station and the options available."

After they were back on station, Barana said, <
An assassin just made an attempt on President Johnson. President Johnson blocked the Secret Service man who tried to take the bullet for him, walked up to the man, disarmed him, slapped him across the face, and showed him the three bullets that had been fired. The assassin fainted and was then taken into custody. The President would like to talk with you and is in private.
>

"Ok." And Barana transported him to the Presidents room. "Mr. President, are you ok?"

"Thanks to you, I am. The first shot scared the bejeebers out of me, I saw agent Andrews trying to get between me and the gun so I blocked him and the second shot made me mad so I went up to him and took his gun away after he fired the third time. Then I slapped him and grinned at him, showed him the bullets and the sucker fainted dead away. He had a cyanide capsule in a false molar so that was extracted before he woke back up. He was sent by Iran by the way. Thought you would like to know. But mostly I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. How did you know?"

"I really don't know. I get these feelings, intuitions, whatever and have learned to pay attention and act on them. I am just glad that this worked out to your benefit and that no one else was hurt. Would you mind if Barana and a pair of my people do an interrogation of this turkey. I think we might be more effective than you can imagine. We will share everything. Also understand, you do not owe me any special favors, just keep doing what you are doing. That is all I ask."

The President grinned and said, "I will arrange that interrogation immediately."

Station 1 in Earth Orbit –

November13 – C Day 75

The meeting had the same countries represented as the previous meeting including Korea and Iran. Fador started off with a very short welcome speech, noted that the entire meeting was being broadcast to everyone in the same manner as the previous meeting and turned over the meeting to Hank. Hank said, "we have two matters to take up before we get into the reasons for this meeting. The first is that yesterday, an attempt was made on the life of President Johnson. Fortunately, he was protected. The assassin was apprehended and interrogated. The man broke down under questioning. Here is what he had to say." A video recording of the interrogation was replayed. Following which Hank said, "This is a pretty serious condemnation of the State of Iran. Does the leader have anything to say to the allegations made by its agent? We on the station have resources you cannot begin to imagine. We have already proved to our satisfaction that the statements made by the assassin are in fact true. This is the second time in as many weeks that this state has attempted to export its brand of terrorism. Any decisions made here today will be made without your presence but we will reserve for your people the ability to participate if they ever come to their senses. All this evidence will be given to the world court for their consideration. The representatives from Iran will now be delivered to the same place we return all of your terrorists. You have been tagged and will not again be able to return to this station. Oh and as a point of interest, the body bomb your assistant is wearing was rendered inoperative on coming to the station. It will be reactivated ten seconds after your return to your capital. People of Iran, if you are at or near the point where terrorists are returned, I would recommend that you might wish to vacate that location now. Barana, give the people twenty seconds to clear out then give these dirt-bags the royal heave ho."

President Johnson raised his hand and when recognized asked if it would be ok to send the assassin with them. Hank smiled and said, "Barana, please make it so." 

Barana sent a thought intended to be heard by all, <
Roger that, Commander
.>

"The new leader of North Korea has asked for a few minutes to speak. I told him that we would hear him out."

"My name is Han Dong Sun and I am the new president of North Korea. My predecessor has been deposed and as we speak is being turned over to the United Nations for trial by the world court for crimes against humanity. We have also started serious negotiations with South Korea to hopefully reunite the peninsula. Please accept my sincere apology for the craziness that has ensued for the past few years and culminating in the horror of the past two weeks. We invite the international community to provide inspections to assure the world that we are doing what we say we are doing. We ask that you consider some humanitarian aid because too many our 24.5 millions are starving and the onset of winter is upon us. With that General Stone, if it is your wish to return my assistant and I to our home, I will understand. Thank you for your forbearance."

Hank rose and started applauding. Others rose and did the same. Hank said, "President Han, Barana has confirmed that you are indeed doing what you have stated and I admit I am encouraged. We can also help you with the crises you now face with food and warm clothing. If you are willing to stay for a few minutes following this meeting, we will get that effort rolling. I believe the rest will support me in saying that you have earned a seat at this table."

"Leaders of the planet, the past three weeks have been undoubtedly traumatic for you. For that I am sorry but I must tell you that there is nothing of import that I would have changed given the circumstances. We nevertheless recognize that our efforts to recruit and prepare for the coming invasion have had an impact on you that some did not expect and I am not apologetic for the decisions made in that regard. In order to access persons needed we went initially to those in your societies that have been disenfranchised, ignored or discarded and offered them an opportunity that you did not. We offered them education and health. More than 1.4 billion of your people have decided to partake of this opportunity as of today and we expect that number to rise above 3 billion. So far, it appears that about half of that number decided to return to Earth. You can do the number crunching yourselves. What does that save you if you had provided those services. In some areas we have made serious inroads in some diseases that you have not been able to handle, AIDS, malaria, West Nile fever, Ebola to name a few. Hopefully we can continue to assist you in your efforts in these areas. It is not our purpose but is a benefit resulting from our mission. We will continue to offer the program for a few more weeks so that all who wish will have the opportunity to avail themselves of the program."

"Consider, what would be the impact if you did not have to be concerned about power generation and transmission of that power? Would it not be nice to have the many miles of power lines and poles made unnecessary? What if existing power from water and wind could be integrated with new power sources and the burning of coal, oil, wood or the use of fissionable material was no longer necessary? Power to provide heat for warmth or cooking where now trees are utilized? What could you do without that drain on your efforts and resources? What could you accomplish with war taken out of the equation? With some effort on your part, you can be in that position in about three to five years. This can be accomplished with Antoran technology and license but with your own resources. If you do not work or put effort into the creation of the resource you do not garner the advantages. Many of your existing factories can be retooled in a relatively short time and your people can be retrained in the new technologies in a few days to weeks. We do not intend to give this away without some return and we do not intend to make the rich even richer, though in some cases that may be the result. These technologies are going to be in the public domain and every person will be a shareholder in that technology. The profits resulting from the application of these technologies will inure to all stockholders. We will leave that structure for you to design and it must be international. You will design the oversight structure and it will be reviewed and approved by the Antoran Fleet before anything is released to you. That is step 1."

"The next step is the move into space. When the Glarin threat is dealt with, we will be able to focus on helping you to achieve access to the rest of the solar system and the stars. Initially this will be to access the resources of the solar system to improve life on Earth. Ultimately, this should lead to interaction with four independent colony planets that will initially be populated by people from Earth. There are also five other planets, four of them have a technology base similar to or slightly ahead of that on Earth. The fifth will not be ready for contact for some time yet since they are in their iron age. The Antoran Fleet is willing to lease ships for this effort. Those terms will need to be worked out, but will not be onerous, in fact quite the opposite."

"The final step involves your military. We have determined that we will revise the duration of the moratorium on incursions into the territory of another from 25 years to 100 years. It is our hope that this use of your manpower will be reduced substantially. Obviously there will be some need for internal functions such as those traditionally exercised by a national guard. These units generally deal with general civil disorder, national disasters, etc. Several governments have expressed an interest in the transfer of whole units to the Antoran Fleet. We have decided to accept these units. The conditions for this must include that the every member of such a unit must freely volunteer for such duty, must be granted honorable discharge, must be able to retain his or her citizenship should return to that country be desired after service, must agree to allegiance to the stations, must agree to be integrated with other units, must be permitted free access to the various locations on Earth and a few other requirements. Property owned by persons serving on station must be non-taxable. To protect the interest of the owners of the property, we intend to secure it against unauthorized entry. Those serving will be subject to a strict code of conduct. In fact they will be unable to become inebriated or utilize recreational drugs due to the medical enhancement package they receive. Any act of violence initiated against is a non-station person will be a court martial offense."

Hank outlined some of the other details related to President Johnson and others previously without revealing that he had done so. He then continued, "Now that is quite a bit to think about. I would hope you get started on the planning phase of this quickly before unemployment in obsolete industries cripples your ability to do so. You are all free to remain here as long as you like. Merely tell Barana you are ready to return home and you will be returned. Thank you for your time."

He then approached President Han saying, "Mr. President, I am pleased that you are here and hopefully your county will join the rest in its desire for peace. I think we can help you with your food needs, at least in the short term. The question is, are you able to distribute the food we provide to those in need? How soon will you be ready to distribute what we can provide and how? We can use our shuttles to distribute a considerable amount in a short time. One other option is that we can probably handle your entire population on the stations and utilize the upgrade program to educate them and to bring their health up to par. This could start in two days and takes about a week. Since winter has started in Korea, Your people are not as concerned with farms but livestock might be an issue. So here is what I can offer you right now. First, starting tomorrow morning, massive delivery of food and heating supplies if you are able to receive them. Next, send a third of your people up here to use the education and health upgrade program, another third in 10 days and the final third 10 days after that. They will be fed during the time here and we will not offer the option to remain on station or emigrate to one of the colony worlds for the time being. We will see that you have sufficient food to get you through to harvest time next summer. Use your military to see that the livestock of persons coming up are cared for until your people return. I must warn you that the education your people will receive has a very strong civics element to it that includes fairly critical views of totalitarian regimes. It does discuss democratic processes and how they can be established. What do you think?

"General Stone, given what the world has faced from us in recent times, that is an extremely generous offer and I gladly accept it. It is time we contributed something to this world of ours. I would ask one more thing since I expect it will be a point of contention. Would you first run my officer corps through the 'civics' course, as you call it. It may be what is needed to realign their thinking in the appropriate direction."

"I admit that has me a bit worried. Your generals have been a bit too long in the grip of your predecessors. You may need a little extra to carry you through this time of change. I tell you this in confidence and ask that you not share it with anyone. I am a fairly strong telepath. One of the strong advantages to this is that people cannot tell me a lie without my knowing it for what it is. I know that you have not lied to me about anything you have said today. For that reason, I am going to offer you a gift. The gift has some conditions but for you those will not be offensive. I recently gave this gift to President Johnson. I think you read or heard about the assassination attempt on him yesterday. The gift I am offering is the same kind of shield. It is effective against all kinds of projectile, explosive devices, knives, etc. It will be revoked if you attempt to abuse or misuse or shift to using it for self gain. I am worried that some of your generals may want to grab the reins of power for their own purposes. Will you accept this gift?"

"I would be honored to do so and I will not abuse this trust."

Hank held his hand out in front of him and said, "Barana please." Immediately a small box appeared in his hand. He handed it to President Han and said "there are three vials in this box. One has your name on it. Open that vial and slowly pour that on your hand." President Han did as instructed. Hank went on, "In about fifteen minutes, the protection will be active. It takes about 12 hours to reach full strength. The other two vials are for your wife Park Hyun Jung and your daughter Han Eun Kyung, so they cannot be threatened to influence you. If either of them is attacked or any attempt is made to molest to abduct them, they will immediately be transported to safety and you will be advised where they are along with information of the perpetrators. That should allow you to move decisively and fearlessly. If you like, I can invite them here now and you can take care of that protection immediately. Also know that you can reach the station any time because Barana will be listening for you."

"General Stone, this is overwhelming, Can my voice be added to assure them that it is ok so they will not be frightened."

Hank smiled and said, "Of course. Barana, would you make the connection and after the Presidents wife is satisfied with her attire and appearance, transport them here to join President Han. Are my parents on board and available? Sam do you have a few minutes to join me?"

Shortly after, Alex, Mary and Sam arrived followed by the President Han's wife and daughter dressed in traditional Korean dress. After introductions were made, president Han gave his wife and daughter the vials and that was completed. President Han's wife was delighted with the attire that Barana had provided and was further excited by the fact that she could keep it. Hank then explained the task at hand and asked his parents with Barana's aid to get the operation rolling. He then asked Hardrock and Fudgenickle to join them. After they arrived, he took them aside and brought them up to speed, he asked them, "How many warships do you have ready for flight operations?"