IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
JOURNEY TO THE LIGHT
By; Speaker Gerald Polley
All rights reserved.
Chapter 17
They landed in New York and Carol mentioned
she'd like to see the memorial. In minutes buses were brought up
and they were whisked away. As they approached the police were
holding back crowds. As Carol got off the bus a young woman
screamed "Murdering bitch! Murdering animal!"
Carol got a little bit perturbed and walked over. "What's
your problem?" she asked, "When you make accusations like that you
should have evidence to back it up. I could charge you, you know,
for making false accusations."
"What about the pilot?" the girl screamed, "What
about the pilot that was doing his duty and trying to bring you to
justice that was shot down? You can't claim that isn't
murder! He had every right to demand that you land in Canada
where The United Nations is still respected."
"Contraire," Mr. Asad put in, coming up. "The
man was acting totally without authorization. His own people
repeatedly ordered him to disengage and return to his own
territory. He was not acting on behalf of his government. Your
accusations are totally unfounded. We do not know why the man
took off, challenged us and ordered us to land. He had no
authority to do so. The American aircraft had every right to defend us."
"That's not so," the woman screamed, "That's not so!
He was acting on the authority of The U.N. The Canadian
government should've backed them."
Mr. Asad sighed. "See?" he told Carol, "You
can't reason with them. Everything is twisted in their
minds. We've been having trouble with the Hispanic people in The
United States ever since the girl in California was acquitted of
manslaughter because she kicked the girl that was shaving her legs and
broke her neck. To these people such behavior is
acceptable. A gang of girls has a right to hold a girl down while
another one is shaving her legs against her wishes. They can't be
reasoned with!"
"You don't kill somebody," the girl screamed
"because she is shaving your legs! You don't kill somebody for
that like you killed our people in the restaurant yesterday.
You're murderers! Other people can't enjoy their culture, can't
have their culture. You spoil everything! You spoil
everything!"
"I'm sorry you have that attitude," Carol
sighed. "People have a right to defend themselves, people have no
right to do whatever they want to do and say its acceptable because
it's part of their culture. If a girl doesn't want to shave her
legs, nobody has a right to do it. Other people have rights too, you
know."
The girl scowled at her, and Carol moved on. "What happened in Los Angeles?" she asked.
"Some of our people were in a restaurant celebrating
a girl's birthday. Members of the local gang came in drenched in
the perfume that's part of their manliness now. The manager asked
them to leave. They refused. The police were summoned. Some of our
people that had allergy problems put on respirators. One of the
gang members took offense, came over and started insulting them, saying
they were insulting their culture, that their perfume didn't bother
people. He was told to leave. He pulled a weapon and was
put down with a stun gun. One of his companions pulled a weapon
and opened fire, hitting a totally innocent bystander, another
Hispanic, killing him. Our people drew weapons and returned fire,
killing four of the gang members, wounding two of them. When the
police finally arrived they took statements and where two of our people
were off duty police officers they let everyone go without
charges. The Hispanic community went insane, blamed everything on
us, said we were insulting their children, insulting their lifestyle.
It was all our fault. They demanded charges be pressed, the court
said no, we were acting in self defense, perfectly legal. The
young man that started it all is being charged with manslaughter.
No matter what we do we can be perfectly justified, everything can be
perfectly legal, but in some of the press we're the terrible people
that won't accept other people's culture, won't cooperate with
them. The good Hispanics in the communities are standing with us,
but people like her continue to attack. We won't let them do what
they want to do."
Carol shook her head. "Will it ever end?" she asked.
"In time," Mr. Asad assured. "But old habits
die hard. Those who practically ruled the cities and could get
away with almost anything don't like it that there's people that will
fight back, that won't take it. The hoodlums are few in number, but
their cultural support is strong. If it wasn't us it would be
someone else that would be cracking down. We just happen to be
the ones that got caught in the time and place when it had to
end. The country's freer of drugs than it's ever been. It's cost
a lot of lives. It's hard for those who have been runnin wild to
reintegrate with society. But it has to come."
Carol got to the monument. She didn't want to be
distracted any more. She prayed, went through the museum, then they got
back on the buses and headed back to the airport. They'd spend
the night, go down to Florida in the morning. After supper the
children all gathered around.
"What am I gonna be asked this time?" Carol teased.
"Nothing serious!" her youngest answered. "We were just wondering how the anti gravs work."
"Well, I'm not too much of an expert on this," Carol
admitted, "but I believe the ship has a unit in it that repels all
gravity except in the direction where you want to go. To give it assist
there's six units surrounding it that draw away half the gravity in a
circle around it so that a tunnel forms going up through the atmosphere
that has no gravity. The atmosphere and everything is pulled away
so it makes it real easy for the ship to pull up. The engines
that propel it have only ten pounds of thrust, nothing compared to what
was needed before anti gravity was developed! Some people
complain it does harm to the atmosphere, that some of the atmosphere is
lost. This is absolutely untrue! Just as soon as the tunnel
closes the atmosphere comes back and the only place that receives any
access radiation is the launch pad! That's hardly
noticeable! They always try to launch when the sun is not
directly overhead. I tell you, it's going to be a very strange
experience weighing less than nothing! But some people say it's
rather thrilling. I understand they use a reverse trick on the
moon to make the gravity the same as on Earth. They have anti grav
units making the gravity less some places so it will be more where you
are. With enough of them the living areas are the same gravity as
on Earth so you won't get weak from living on the moon."
"I heard," one of the boys put in, "that they
actually make it a little bit more so when you come back to Earth
you're stronger."
Carol smiled. "That's just a story!" she
assured. "Now come on! It's getting late.We gotta get to
bed. It's going to be a very exciting day tomorrow. We're
going up into the stars! Tomorrow will be the last time for some
of us, that we ever set foot on Earth! Some of you may be among
the first to go out into the stars."
"Naww!" the same boy put in, "We won't live long enough."
Carol laughed. "You might be surprised!" she cautioned.
They all bedded down, but Carol kept thinking of the
hate of that girl at the memorial. Her people were doing
nothing. They weren't bothering anyone. But time and time again
they were being accused of atrocities when they were the ones being
attacked. She supposed it was inevitable, it was part of being the
society that was rising and replacing so much else, people that once
controlled the world were now only observers of what was going
on. She got off to sleep. What she had told the children
was absolutely true. Tomorrow was going to be an exciting day!
She did, however, before she went to sleep, check the latest readings.
It was still too close to call. It could go either way. The
asteroid could hit Mars dead center, or it could miss and go back off
into space. It would give Mars a hell of a tug as it went by, but
little harm would be done. Mars wasn't quite as massive as the
Earth, and no one knew what this thing was gonna do when it got closer
to the sun. People were wondering why it hadn't lit up yet.
If it had any ice it should be producing a tail by now Carol
wanted at the instruments on the moon! She wanted at them very
much!
That night a helicopter landed on the roof of the
hotel. Six men got out and headed for the stairwell. Twelve
security guards persuaded them that was as far as they wanted to
go. No one worried Carol with it the next morning. The
locals would take care of it. They didn't want to disturb her
exciting day!