D. A. Houdek

Deb Houdek Rule

Web designer - Science Fiction author - Civil War historian - Genealogy researcher

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Of All the Western Stars

by Deb Houdek Rule

Chapter 20

The day dawned crisp and rosy, the sun beaming upon the world as if it were a newly created thing and yesterday’s bleak, storminess belonged to a different world. Ashur rode back toward Agnes’ estate slowly, repeatedly pulling the feisty stallion back down into a walk. Even the horse seemed reborn today, trying to bite Ashur only once, and almost accepting of the rider on its back.

Ashur looked out upon the fresh, clean land and wished it was still raining and gray. The very brightness was too cheery, too brilliant. And a clear sky meant he might see that cursed star tonight.

He’d taken some time in the morning to cut brush and branches to better shield the ship. It didn’t seem likely anyone would find it by happenstance, the forest hid it well and grass had already begun hiding the scar the ship’s skid had torn in the earth. After taking every possible view of the ship and its damage with Baby, and sealing the ship as well as possible, Ashur had taken his clothes, the A.I. unit, and several other items with him in a pouch. Most notably he took the pocket laser torch, having not mastered in the two weeks he’d been here the techniques for producing fire. Unlike the Staffords, Agnes’ home had actual matches, each one apparently handmade and treated as reverently as if it was made of gold. At least in the privacy of his own room he wouldn’t have to struggle. It occurred to him that most of the things in his pouch would be taken for magic here and now. A renowned author, centuries before his own time, had said that any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. Ashur wondered if any of the primitives here in the sixteenth century would ever be able to accept any of his twenty-sixth century devices as anything but magic. Well, that was merely intellectual speculation, he’d never let anyone see them.

The red bricks of Agnes’ estate came into view by mid-afternoon. He considered exploring the surrounding countryside but realized that no matter what was there, it would still be intrinsically part of the fifteen hundreds and of absolutely no use in restoring his ship.

The servants, notably less eager and bustlingly busy in Ashur’s presence than they had been for their mistress, met him, leading away the white stallion who tried for one last nip at Ashur’s legs. He would not mind, he decided, if he never saw a horse again unless it was done medium well on his plate.

That evening Ashur prowled the house. He was lonely, he realized, in a house containing more people than the Imperial palace ever had. Strange how live human servants could make one feel ever so much more alone than machines had. The library drew him again. There was a curious pleasure in handling the crude, leather bound books. Such inventiveness and hard work these people must have put in to produce these few volumes. What he and his time did so easily now were difficult and complex endeavors, made doubly so because the technologies being used were often being invented at the same time.

Settling into the hard, straight-backed chair, Ashur turned the pages, not reading so much as studying the blurred edges of the letters, actual ink impressed onto a page of handmade paper, the letters of the non-powered press each handcarved of wood. Ashur didn’t doubt that the printer could have reproduced every device he used from little more than a pile of wood if he needed. That unknown printer understood his machines and tools and how to build and repair them.

Ashur sighed and opened the slim, gray shape of his computer, resting it within the open pages of the book. The screen lit silently, the device’s warm voice having been silenced for safety. On the screen the images he’d taken of the ship’s interior were overlaid with illustrations from technical manuals. Asked to offer conclusions and options, over and over the incredibly smart little machine suggested the impossible.

Sighing again, Ashur darkened the screen. Perhaps things were better now. He knew of sciences and technologies a millennia beyond that used by this book’s creator. He had studied mathematics that wouldn’t be invented for centuries. His ship was the product of culmination of thousands of years of human learning. Yet he was trapped here because he didn’t know how to fix it. Replace this particular component, Baby told him. When he asked how to make the damaged part the device obligingly provided instructions. Grand. Now if he could only find sufficient quantities of titanium, platinum and the plutonium 239. Ashur rubbed his eyes tiredly. No, the isotope would have to be laboratory created… which meant that first he’d have to create the laboratory.

It was impossible. One man simply couldn’t do it alone, not in a thousand lifetimes. And it couldn’t be done in this era where even projectile weapons were still thought a pretty darned clever idea. What was the old line? Oh, yes… "When it’s time to railroad…" Well, it wasn’t time and even if Ashur presented the King himself detailed instructions, it still wouldn’t be. Tudor England could never have a railroad and he couldn’t fix his ship. The future could not be forced.

The realization would have been crushing, save that deep down Ashur had known it from the first moment Lisette had told him, with that delightfully puzzled wrinkle to her nose, that he was in May of fifteen eighteen.

As he stared dully at the floor, images of Lisette filled his mind; her melodious voice telling him of her home and family in a way that would be called trite by the sophisticated people of his time, but that he realized was warm and loving in a way unknown in his era. He also remembered the searing spark in her, the radiant heat and sexuality that sparkled through in rare glimpses, and the subdued meekness she wore like a cloak to make herself appear the proper maiden. He wished her well… He wished she was here, not just in his mind but in his arms as well.

Finding himself staring at the far wall of the small, paneled library, a realization pushed its way forward. That wall wasn’t quite right. He’d been through every inch of this house, explored every millimeter, but he couldn’t visualize what room lay behind that wall. Punching Baby on again, and asking it to raise the keyboard function so that servants would not hear him speaking to it, Ashur instructed it to create a floor plan of the estate house, using the images he’d covertly taken in his explorations.

Almost at once a three dimensional representation floated on the small screen, rotating around at command. Well, there it was, there was an unaccounted space. And it lay beyond that wall. The computer suggested that this was the most likely place of access. If only he could find the entrance… Shouldn’t be hard, how complex could these people make anything? Pleased to have a mystery to divert his attention, Ashur moved to the wall, examining its edges carefully.

An hour later he was frustrated and annoyed. He’d found a tarnished key, but no lock to match. Lighting several candles with his torch in the encroaching darkness of night, he bent close to the bottom of the paneling. He thought he could discern a hint of footsteps in the nap of the carpeting, footsteps that were cut off by the wall itself. The door had to be here.

Half an hour more passed before Ashur’s finger brushed against a slight notch in one panel. Hadn’t there been another, similar, notch in that one, as well? Moments later Ashur was stepping into the dusty hidden chamber.

He gasped when he saw the shelves. Quickly, he entered several of the titles into the computer. It was as he suspected… this was a treasure trove of books thought lost to time, remembered only by their titles. Not all, to be sure, Luther’s Ninety-Five Thesis still existed, but this handwritten copy looked as though it had been copied right from the Wittenburg Church door. Religious texts dominated the room, but the Copernicus book caught his eye. That Agnes, he thought with swelling admiration, there was more to that old vixen than he had suspected. Baby confirmed, once it understood the nuances of the questions he was asking it, that such books were most likely banned, and might get one burned as either a heretic or a traitor.

Holding the small computer so its pickup could register complete views of the room, he wondered how long would it take to scan the contents of all these books into memory? If he brought the contents of this room back to the twenty-sixth century the historians would be thrilled. Disgusted, Ashur snapped the device off. Slapping it down into the dust on the desk in the center of the small chamber. Would the full thrust of reality never sink in? Would he grow old and die here still clinging to an impossible delusion?

Turning his attention to the desk, he glanced over the papers on the desk. Someone had been taking notes from a handwritten volume, sketching diagrams. He grinned when he saw what it was, the suggestion by Copernicus that the earth moved around the sun. The note-taker had copied those words, underlining them repeatedly in an obviously excited way.

"Say good-bye to your flat earth," Ashur said, grinning. What would this mystery reader — Agnes, most likely — think of the astrophysics texts stored in his tiny computer’s vast memory?

A small wooden box at the head of the desk caught his attention. It was clearly old and very plain. He opened the lid and was greeted with a shock. There amidst other trinkets and oddments lay a familiar object. A faint tremor shook Ashur’s hand as he reached in and lifted the tiny crystal on its ribbon of lace, lace that matched, he realized, the lace on the shirt Lisette had made for him.

Pressing the crystal between his fingers, Ashur watched the familiar play of images, his mother, father, his beloved cat Aureala, the Nebula… Lisette must have had this from the beginning and had hidden it here when she knew she was going home to marry Geraint. That meant that the writing on these papers was hers. Lisette’s. Closing the crystal into his hand, he let his fingertips caress the words she’d written.

The unspoiled splendor of the Earth hung beneath the orbiting ship. A swirling white frosting of clouds had cleared away from the British Isles and moved onto the Continent. From below they were, no doubt, gray and gloomy. But from orbit they were radiant as the setting sun cast a golden hue over them and lengthening shadows highlighted their contours.

All this went unnoticed to the occupants of the ship, however, as they bent over scopes and displays.

"There. Another flash of it. Too short to get a solid fix, but the range is narrowing. Blast it! If only he’d turn it on for a longer time."

"Patience. He’s not going anywhere. Where that power signature is, Ashur is. We’ll find him. Soon we’ll have him."

Agnes returned to the estate two days later. She greeted her servants, now suddenly bubbling with enthusiasm for their work, more warmly than she did Ashur. He felt like a slab of prime meat beneath her squinting stare.

"Where did you get those clothes?" she asked at supper that night.

"I took a brief excursion while you were away," he said, thinking that she knew bloody well from old Tom that he’d taken the white stallion and left for a day. "I managed to reacquire some of my belongings. They were apparently abandoned by the bandits. More’s the luck, they didn’t find a compartment where I’d some gold hidden," he lied smoothly, having had days to prepare his story. The gold was from a ruined component of his ship. He wasn’t sure how much it was worth here, but having at least some hard currency was comforting.

"Ummm…" Agnes considered his answer. Then she surprised him by abruptly changing the subject. "I spoke to the Lady Cicely Stafford about you yestereve." Ashur raised his eyebrows. Was the old bat wondering if he’d obliged her by endorsing her medical judgment and dropped dead of some pestilence? "She spoke highly of your skills with figures and matters of business," Agnes continued. "Would you consider doing the same for me? I have properties and business interests all about Wiltshire and Hampshire and I fear I’ve neglected them somewhat. It’s truly a man’s occupation, afterall, beyond the ken of a poor woman all alone."

Ashur was genuinely shocked by the self-deprecating remark she aimed at herself and her entire gender. Had a woman of Agnes’ — what was the best word to describe her? Tenacity was most polite, but carnivorous was probably more accurate — In any case, a woman of her abilities in his world would likely be running a major company, or holding a leading position in the government.

"Madame," he said, "I would never underestimate your abilities so. However, if you wish it, I shall examine your records and offer my poor advice." With Baby it wouldn’t take long, not like the tedious business at the Staffords.

As the evening progressed, and Agnes chatted about her properties and concerns, Ashur pondered this type-casting in which he found himself. Did he truly look like an accountant? He’d rather fancied that he looked more like a pirate or adventurer with his long hair and loose-sleeved white shirt and Agnes had taken him in to serve as a gigolo in her immoral palace of pleasure. A glance at the ghastly white-powdered, rouged face of Agnes caused him to wryly consider that, perhaps, being her accountant was not so dire a fate after all.

"Your pardon, Madame?" he interrupted, realizing that he hadn’t heard what she was saying.

"I said that we, then, will leave here to tour my holdings. And if things work out as I suspect they will, and you’re willing to continue in my employ, I shall see you settled in one of my estates near the town of West Tetherly."

West Tetherly, Ashur thought. He’d never heard of it. What of interest could there possibly be there?