Stormcrow, page 28
“Yes, I'm asking,” Faulks growled back. “Look, I know the situation with the girl is a frakin' mess, but I'm talkin' about the town. The people. That woman didn't seem off in any way to me. Did she to you two? I didn't see or feel anything out o' place in town, either.”
Tony froze with a sarcastic reply on his lips and looked at Sean. Galen looked in thought, clearly thinking back over the events of the past two hours or so.
“No,” he said finally with a shake of his head. “No, everything seemed okay, so far as I could tell. Woman wasn't nervous except about finding us on her doorstep. And she wasn't fishing for a tale, either.”
“Exactly,” Faulks nodded firmly. “All I'm sayin' is that whatever's wrong here, it's the girl, not the town. That's what I'm seein' right now.”
“Where is the profit in lying about being a college student on her way home?” Tony pondered. “I mean she did get a free ride, but-”
“To the ass-end of the universe,” Faulks pointed out. “Who the hell wants to visit a place like this unless they have to, or they have a reason to be here? Family is a reason. And I didn't say she's lyin'.”
“But you said-”
“I said that it wasn't the town,” Faulks corrected the flustered cook and medic. “Just because she's telling us something that doesn't make sense don't make her a liar. That's why I asked you two what you thought about the folks we did see. Keep an eye and ear open while you're out. We find out if that Vanover woman's story is straight, then we can narrow it to the girl. Maybe she don't remember right. I've seen people block out traumatic shit that happened to them.”
“Forget their parents died?” Tony raised an eyebrow.
“I've seen troops keep talkin' to mess mates that was killed weeks before,” Faulks shrugged. “It happens. Nothin' says it can't happen to her. Or that it ain't, for that matter.”
Both men were impressed by Faulks' reasoning, though both would take that to their grave rather than let her hear them say it.
“We'll mind it,” Sean settled for saying. “We'll be back soon as we can.”
“Watch yourselves, just in case it ain't the girl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sean Galen and Tony Giannini walked slowly up the main street of the small town, casually taking in the sites along the street. Neither wanted more attention that two obvious strangers from a ship that landed nearby would bring, which was plenty, and they tried not to attract any extra.
“Faulks made a sound argument,” Tony noted as the two walked. His tone might have been the same if he'd said that a gorilla had rubbed two sticks together to make fire.
“You make it sound like she can't,” Sean chuckled.
“Didn't think she was equipped for it,” Tony shrugged. “But she does make a point. Unless this entire town is in on the biggest surprise ever pulled off, Jessica is either lost in time, lying, or she was. . .” he trailed off.
“Or what?” Sean demanded after a minute.
“I can't think of anything else at the moment,” Tony admitted. “I'm working on it.”
“You do that.” Sean was feeling more uneasy by the minute with the entire situation.
Jessica Travers had been adamant during the weeks she had spent aboard the Celia that she was on her way home after five years away for school. Her story had been consistent every time she had relayed a part of it, whether to him or the others. Now they were on her home world, yet according to the woman living in what Jessica was sure had been her childhood home, her parents had been deceased for some time, and their daughter had gone away to school over two decades ago and hadn't returned, or been heard from ever again.
“Take it easy, bro,” Tony soothed his friend. “I know it's weird.”
“It's spooky is what it is,” Sean replied just short of tersely. “That girl was absolutely positive that she was on her way home to be with her family. Every time she's told us her story, it's been consistent and I haven't found or heard of a single discrepancy, yet here we are.”
“Here we are,” Tony nodded, looking to their front. Sean followed his gaze and found they were standing at the entrance to the Founder's Garden.
“Well, let's take a gander, shall we?” Tony said.
The two walked into the walled area not knowing exactly what to expect. What they found was a beautifully maintained garden with flowers, trees, a few small structures and signage explaining the significance of everything inside. Near the center of the area was an old well, complete with a brick walling around the mouth and a cover over the top. A pulley and well bucket were suspended from a cross beam in the small roof and looked well maintained.
“According to this,” Tony was reading the sign while Sean continued to look around them, “this well was the sole source of water for the first two years anyone was here.”
“Harsh living,” Sean nodded.
“No kiddin',” Tony nodded. “Hey, look there,” he added, pointing. Sean followed the gesture with his eyes to find another wall, much smaller this time, encompassing a small area of the garden.
“That might be the cemetery,” Sean decided.
“What I was thinking,” Tony agreed. “Let's go have a look, shall we?”
The two entered the small burial ground respectfully. Tony watched as Sean stooped to pick up a handful of soil and spread it about him, his mouth moving silently. When he finished he noted Tony's stare.
“Just a prayer,” he shrugged. “This is a burial ground,” he added, as if that should explain it all.
“My people use crypts and vaults,” Tony shrugged. They moved through the small garden of stone, until they were standing before a large rock bearing two names.
Daniel and Amanda Travers.
“Dude,” Tony pointed to the dates on the rock.
“So, it is true,” Sean breathed out. The dates for the deceased were nearly twenty years old.
“Man, this is creepy,” Tony said softly. “Hair on my neck is standing up, Sean.”
“I know the feeling,” his friend nodded.
“You knew the Travers?” a voice made both jump slightly and they turned to find a short, wizened man with sun darkened skin standing behind them, a shovel in his hand serving at that moment as a staff.
“Sir?” Tony said, still startled by the man's appearance.
“Did you know 'em?” he indicated the rock.
“Just knew some of their people is all,” Sean replied. “We were. . .we were supposed to deliver a message but. . .” he trailed off, indicating the rock.
“Long time late in deliverin' anything to Dan and Mandy,” the man shook his head. “Been gone nigh twenty years, I guess. Longer for Dan I guess,” he said after a pause. “Memory ain't what it used to be.”
“We had heard he had the Miner's Lung,” Tony nodded. “Miss Amanda though, she died after Dan?”
“Probably of a broken heart,” the man nodded, his eyes starting to water slightly. “They had a daughter, Jenny. . .no, Jessica. Yeah, that was it,” he nodded firmly. “Called her Jess, mostly if I recollect. She left, oh, must be twenty-five years and gone, now. Pretty thing as I recall,” he smiled. “Smart too. Won some kind of scholarship for it and went Sphere-ward to school. Man, ol' Dan was so proud he was fit to burst.”
“She never came back?” Sean asked, feigning polite disinterest.
“Dropped off the face o' the world, seemed like,” the man shook his head sadly. “Never seen or heard from again. Broke their heart. They spent years trying to look for her. Everyone pitched in to buy Dan a ticket to wherever she went to school, can't recall where that was just now, but he went and tried to find what happened to her. Never could. Came home a broken man. I always did think that was how the Lung got him so fast. Usually a man hangs on a while if he's got medicines.”
“Did he?” Tony asked.
“He did, for all the good it did,” the man nodded. “We had a doc by then, and he was good, is good I should say. But wasn't nothin' he could do for Dan, seemed like. Man just lost the will to live, I always thought. Amanda maybe lived a year after he died,” he pointed to the date on the rock.
“That's a shame,” Tony sighed. “I'm sorry to hear that.”
“They was the last o' the founders, too,” the little man continued. “Always heard tell Dan was maybe seventeen and Amanda just turned sixteen when they came here with the company's forward team. Didn't even have a shaft started. Dan worked his way up to shift foreman and then finally took over runnin' the mill, but it was too late for his lungs. Didn't always have the best safety equipment in the old days. Better now.”
“I'm glad to hear that,” Tony said sincerely. “Well, I guess we'd better get going. We appreciate you talking to us, Mister. . .?”
“Poole. Willie Poole. Pleasure was mine,” he smiled. “Don't get as many visitors here as we used to. People always in too much of a hurry. I've been caretaker since I was hurt in a cave-in back, oh, twenty-years or so ago, maybe. Give or take. Don't really keep up with the time much, these days,” he admitted.
“I know that feeling,” Sean nodded. “It's a beautiful garden Mister Poole.”
“Thank you, son,” the older man nodded gratefully. “You two take care. Come back if you're in the area again. I'll try and tell you something a bit more uplifting, next time.”
“We'll do just that.”
The two made their way out of the garden and started back toward the Celia. Half-way there the two had spotted the local paper's office, conveniently beside a small library. Apparently the two were run by the same people.
“Want to go in?” Tony asked, nodding that way.
“No,” Sean shook his head adamantly. “I want to get the hell off this rock and never come back. This is wrong on a dozen levels or more.”
“It's weird, I agree,” Tony nodded. “If she wasn't so young, I'd say she's just suffering amnesia and started to remember where she belonged,” he mused as they continued along their way. “Thing is; her age fits her story. At least until we got here it did.”
“She is so certain,” Sean shook his head again, more slowly this time. “Whatever the truth may be, she is absolutely convinced that she's from here, and those two,” he jerked his head toward the garden, “are her parents. That she's been gone five years and that's all.”
“You know, we should have asked if they had any other family,” Tony snapped his fingers suddenly. “What if that was her grandparents, man?”
“Names fit the story,” Sean shrugged. “We'll ask Jess what her parent's names were when we get back. If she says Dan and Amanda, then. . .well, I don't know what exactly,” the engineer admitted helplessly. “Got no idea, in fact.”
“Linc will figure it out,” Tony said confidently.
“I can't figure this out,” Linc shook his head slowly. He and Meredith were on the bridge looking at local news stories from two decades in the past. “Everything is so. . .so normal.”
“What did you expect?” Meredith asked, leaning against him slightly.
“Well, I thought there'd be something weird, you know?” he admitted. “I mean, this has got to be the strangest thing I've seen, ever. Things like that don't usually happen in a vacuum. There should be something else.”
“Maybe you're looking in the wrong place,” Meredith suggested.
“What do you mean?” Linc looked up at her from his seat before the ship's computer.
“She went missing after she left, according to the Vanover woman,” Meredith pointed out. “On Beria, apparently. Maybe you should be looking there.”
“We're too far away for that,” Linc sighed, shutting off the screen and standing. “Maybe when we're back closer to the Sphere we can do that. I mean, if we want to try and find out what happened.”
“Why wouldn't we?” Meredith asked.
“It's not really our business, I guess,” Lincoln shrugged. “I mean, if she asks us to find out what we can and send it to her, then that's different. Otherwise, it's like we're digging into someone's life. Prying, sort of.”
“You're assuming she's going to stay here,” Meredith said evenly. “Why should she? Where would she, for that matter? And what will she do? Her name will start ringing bells the minute she uses it. The best she can hope for is to be accused of identity theft. And her teaching cert will be in Jessica Travers' name, too. I'm willing to bet that's going to be useless to her.”
“Hadn't thought of that,” Lincoln admitted. “Poor kid. What's she going to do?”
“We'll see,” Meredith shrugged. “Meantime-”
“Cap'n,” Faulks' voice across the I/C speaker cut off whatever Meredith was going to say. “Galen and the Doc are back.”
“We'll be down in a second,” Meredith called back. “Let's get everyone into the mess, Gun. . .Chief, and see what they've found out.”
“Aye, Cap'n.”
“Let's go see what they learned.”
“Yes,” Jessica nodded. “Daniel and Amanda. Why?”
Tony blew out a long breath, fidgeting under her stare.
“We found a grave with their names on it,” Sean lowered the boom calmly. “Dated between twenty and twenty-five years ago,” he added. “We also met the caretaker of the gardens. He knew them, at least slightly, and told us pretty much the same story the Danover woman did, though he had a bit more detailed information.” He looked at Lincoln and Meredith for a second before turning his gaze back to the distraught girl.
“The caretaker's name was Poole. Willie Poole. He said that the Travers' daughter, Jessica, went off world to study. She was smart, he said. Won a scholarship for an off-world school and left to study, but was never heard from again. He said Dan went to whatever world Jessica went to study on to look for her, that they all pitched in to pay for his passage. But he never could find out what happened.”
“He passed a bit later from an ailment called Miner's Lung,” Tony took up the narrative, though with reluctance. “Amanda died about two years afterward. Poole reckons she died from a broken heart more than anything else. Jessica, I'm sorry but. . .everything we've found checks out pretty good.”
“I don't understand,” Jessica shook her head. “I can't understand. I've only been gone a little while, just five years and a few months. I did win the scholarship,” she confirmed. “I couldn't have gone to school without it in fact. Far too expensive. As it was I worked almost a year at whatever I could do in order to pay my passage to Beria. And I had to work while I was in school to pay my living expenses. The scholarship only covered tuition and books. Nothing else.”
“Look, we're all exhausted,” Meredith said suddenly. “And Jessica you've got to be near the end of your tether after all this. Let's get some rest and then we'll see what else we can learn. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this, we just have to figure it out. That's all.”
Tony and Sean exchanged looks, then both looked at Lincoln, who only shrugged in return. He didn't have any better ideas at the moment.
“Faulks, you have first watch,” Meredith ordered, standing. “We'll stand four hour watches so that someone is always awake. We're not in a port so someone may come wanting the ship gone. For the moment I think it best if we kept your name and story to ourselves, Jess.”
“Why?” the girl asked. “I don't understand.”
“If we can't prove who you are, that you are who you say you are, then your name might cause a stir among the locals. You might be charged with identity theft, for starters. We want to avoid that. In fact, we want to avoid bringing any attention to you at all if we can. It will only interfere without getting to the bottom of all this. See what I mean?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Jess nodded, sniffing. “What name do I use if someone wants to know who I am?”
“Jessica Trenton,” Meredith said flatly. “That's my maiden name,” she reminded everyone. “You're my younger sister, for now, riding with us and learning the business. Keep it simple, and remind anyone who asks too many questions that it's rude to do so. I'll leave that to you two,” she looked at Sean and Faulks, both of whom nodded.
“We can do that,” Faulks said, and Sean again nodded in agreement.
“All right then,” Meredith said, satisfied for the moment. “We'll rest, refit, and start fresh after everyone has had some sleep and at least one good meal. There has to be an explanation,” she repeated. “We'll find it.”
“I can't think of a single reasonable explanation for any of this shit,” Tony said quietly as he and Sean huddled with Lincoln in the engine room a few minutes later.
“Neither can I, and I've worked on it since you two left,” Linc agreed.
“We found a paper,” Sean told him. “Their office and the library are beside each other. Looks like the same people run both. Might be a good place to get some information.”
“Might be, but I think we've got all the local information we need,” Linc mused. “We've got pretty much the same story from two sources, and there's physical evidence to support that story.”
“The girl is convinced she's telling the truth,” Sean stated firmly. “She is absolutely sure that she's telling the truth as she knows it.”
“I think so too,” Linc agreed. “Which means the problem is a lot deeper than we know. But we can't rule out that she's running a game of some kind, either,” he warned. “Remember our earlier discussion about how we all felt so protective of her.”
“True,” Tony murmured. “I hadn't added that in.”
“I'm not saying that's how it is, either,” Lincoln stressed. “I'm saying that this is the weirdest shit I've ever even heard of, let alone come across myself. We can't rule out anything at this point except maybe alien abduction.”
The joke fell flat as the three of them went to get some rest.
“Galen, you're up for watch,” Faulks' voice drifted across Sean's cabin. He was instantly awake and keyed the I/C without conscious thought.
“Be right there.”
He stood and went to his sink, washing his sleep away. Five minutes later he was dressed and on his way down the passageway. He met Faulks in the galley.
