Another Step Back, And A Noise Ccomplaint

January 10, 1976

New York City, United States of America

The Committee didn’t understand that coercion of the Uptimers didn’t work.   The Committee didn’t understand that Mission Commander Evelyn Boatman went missing control of the Eagle would be transferred to his adopted daughter Doctor Alice Boatman.  The Committee didn’t understand that after the kidnapping of Mission Commander Evelyn Boatman that they would receive an adverse visit from the reinforced Ranger Company embarked on the starship Eagle.  The Committee also didn’t understand that the standard response to act of coercion on them by the Uptimers was exercise of deadly force.  L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was crucified by the Uptimers when he attacked them.

Washington, DC

President Richard Nixon stared out at White House lawn.  He was one of the people who hated the Uptimers, he especially hated Mission Commander Evelyn Boatman.

The Uptimers made many changes since they've arrived.  The United Nations finally relented and allowed a delegation from The Republic Of Biafra.  The United Nations was now allowed to occupy a zone surrounding the Suez Canal by the Uptimers.  The city of Mecca was erased from the face of the Earth by the Uptimers.  Jordan and Arabia were subsequently merged politically by force.

Mission Commander Evelyn Boatman also spoke on the subject of human error.

“Everyone makes mistakes, even I made a mistake, my first marriage ended due to my errors.  Letting people come to their own conclusions may not appear to be nice, but it's something we have to do.”

Minneapolis, MN

Former Professor Thomas Archer was outside and freezing.  Winter in Minnesota was a rehearsal for the next ice age.  Professor Thomas Archer was fired from the University of Minnesota for trading grades for sexual favors.  Now Professor Thomas Archer was homeless.  Marxist professors and teachers were generally fired in the United States and around the world.

 NOISE COMPLAINT

If I could talk, I'd ask a question of the occupant of APT #2312: What's it like to be a monster who takes advantage of someone's disability?  I overheard him complaining about MY BEHAVIOR after I called, with great difficulty, the police with the seventh noise complaint.  I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO CALL THE POLICE SEVEN TIMES WITH A NOISE COMPLAINT.

Another Step Back

January 3, 1975

White House
Washington, D.C.

The meeting of Vice President Bush with Governor Reagan went well.  Governor Reagan would run as President with Gerald R. Ford as Vice President and Vice President Bush would run as Governor of Texas.

Federal Penitentiary
Leavenworth, KS

Two Rangers with stun sticks in their powered armor suits stood outside of Hubbard's cell.  A prison guard opened the door of the cell.  The two Rangers charged in and struck Hubbard with their stun sticks.  The two Rangers placed duct tape on Hubbard's mouth and taped his hands and feet.  The two Rangers then dragged Hubbard out of the cell, out of the federal prison where an Uptimer lander was parked. The two Rangers then deposited Hubbard on the ground before Evelyn Boatman.

"Hello Ronnie."  Said Boatman to Hubbard.  "Even the Feds got tired of you, which is a major accomplishment."

Boatman looked in Hubbard's eyes.  Boatman could clearly see the anger in Hubbard's eyes.

Boatman continued to speak.

"I know that Jack Parsons was a rocket scientist, but like Alester Crowley, he was a mystical idiot.  Even JPL didn't have a portrait of him.  The Mariner 2 space probe was eventually recovered and placed on display in the lobby of JPL.  We published the truth about you and Scientology and you became angry.  The content of character does actually matter.  You knew we would respond to your assault on us with deadly force.  There simply isn't a excuse for what you did, Scientology's extinct now.  Well so's the House of Saud.  The American Constitution and the Federation Charter specifically prohibit cruelty, but you hold yourself exempt from the law.  Fine, I'll take your word for it.  There's a crucifix waiting for you."

The two Rangers dragged Hubbard into the lander.  The lander flew to the Uptimer surface base in Nevada.  And Hubbard was dragged out of the lander by the two Rangers and to a crucifix.  Boatman stepped out of the lander and picked up a hammer.  The two Rangers placed Hubbard on the cross.  Boatman started pounding nails through Hubbard's wrists.  Boatman then placed a crown of barbed wire on Hubbard's head.  The two Rangers then erected the cross.  A sign reading "Master of Mankind" was nailed above Hubbard's head.

It took two days for Hubbard to painfully die.


Havana, Republic of Cuba

After midnight Tomas was sleeping.  He didn't hear the CDF special operations team that was about to enter his apartment. The CDF special operations team was armed with the AKM.  The CDF special operations team preferred the Kalashnikov system used by the Soviets over the Stoner system used by the Americans.  Tomas didn't know what was about to hit him.

Step Back - Part 38

On the ground it was another bright and sunny morning in Nevada.

Evelyn Boatman had fully resumed his role as the Mission Commander at the ground base and it was now time for breakfast. The young woman acting as an assistant was reading the schedule for the day as he dug into a sausage and cheese omelet with hash browns, coffee and toast.

“Sir, the first item for this morning is a visit by a junior member of the British House of Commons for the Conservative Party,”

“Who is it?” He asked.

“Francis Urquhart from Southampton , sir.”

Boatman was sipping coffee when he heard the name. He suddenly spit out the coffee.

The assistant was visibly shocked.

“Sir, is there a problem?” She said.

“No.” Boatman replied.

It’s only a visit by a man who could give Big Bubba some serious lessons on how to permanently dispose of walking problems. He thought.

“Not a problem at all.” He said.

I’m over two centuries old with serious political experience and I should be able to handle a young Francis Urquhart.

British agent John Cross watched from his position of concealment as Evelyn Boatman greeted Francis Urquhart at the front gate.

Who the Hell is that bugger and how did he get in? He thought.

Boatman spoke first.

“Mister Urquhart, it is good for you to visit us.”

Let’s just keep this short and pleasant.

“Thank you, Mister Boatman.”

Urquhart was given the grand tour of the surface facility but it was very obvious to him that he was the actual center of everyone’s attention on the dirtside base.

“I didn’t expect this level of attention during the visit.” He said.

“Francis,” Boatman replied, “your counterpart on the original timeline was the longest serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom before the Final War and Planetary Unification.”

Urquhart was very shocked to hear this.

And there is the body count too, but we should not mention that.

“I wasn’t expecting to become the Prime Minister.” Said Urquhart.

Boatman replied.

“Unfortunately the immediate predecessor simply wasn’t up to the job and someone had to step in to clean up the mess.”

And over some cold dead bodies as well. He thought. And tossing poor Mattie Storin off the roof of the House of Commons was clearly an appalling move.

“Oh.” Urquhart replied.

“Francis,” said Boatman, “we’ve taken the liberty of putting together an information package for the Conservative Party, it’s a basic history of the original timeline plus some suggestions for things the party should do and to avoid.”

Urquhart nodded.

“And when you do return to London please say hello to Maggie for me.”

“Mrs. Thatcher?” Said Urquhart. “Why?”

“Her counterpart was second longest serving Prime Minister.” Boatman relied.

“Of course.” Said Urquhart.

Boatman thought as his British guest departed.

Well, that wasn’t too unpleasant.

Later in his official residence on Downing Street the current Prime Minister Harold Wilson was throwing a major fit.

“Who visited the base in Nevada?” He shouted.

“Francis Urquhart a Tory member of the Commons from Southampton, sir.”

“But they still won’t speak to the actual government?” Said Wilson.

“No sir.”

Fuck me. Thought Wilson.

Step Back - Part 37

A very rare Sunday meeting was being held at the KGB headquarters off of Lubyanka Square. Colonel Andrei Taganov, who was not related to the head of the Baikonur launch center, would speak to Chairman Yuri Andropov about the information gained on the mission to the Eagle.

“Quite simply Comrade Chairman, we are fucked.” Said Taganov..

“Fucked?” Said Andropov. “What do you mean?”

Taganov replied.

“The Soviet State will ultimately fail–there is simply no alternative.”

It was at that point Andropov could only stare blankly into space.

What would he tell the Politburo? He thought. And how would they respond? And then what will happen next?

Andropov spoke again

“So what would you suggest as a course of action, Colonel?”

“Comrade Chairman, we should lay out a plan for the peaceful transition to a non-communist society.”

Andropov blinked.

“Are you mad?” He said. “The Politburo will reject it!”

Taganov replied.

“It doesn’t matter what the Politburo believes, the Soviet state will eventually come to an end. How it will end is still an open question. We can see to it that the transition to another social order is peaceful. Or we could do nothing and have open chaos as a result.”

On a clear Sunday morning in Washington a mass prayer service was being held on the Mall. On the live television broadcast Katherine Grant first denounced the Uptimers as being the tools of Satan because of their peacefully meeting with the Soviet delegation aboard the Eagle and for continuing to hold her daughter on board their ship. And then she openly denounced the Nixon Administration for their continued contact with and support of them. The simple idea that the Uptimers were acting in accordance with simple courtesy and the actual facts of reality simply did not cross what passed for her mind and didn’t enter into her rant.

Alice and Judith aboard the Eagle silently watched the live broadcast of the prayer service.

President Nixon also watched the broadcast from the White House. On the ground the President had discussed the continuing issue of Grant and her followers with Commander Macdonald.

“Mister President,” said MacDonald, “we simply will not submit to their demands, and should the United States Government do so, we will pull out and go elsewhere.”

“Where would you go?” Nixon asked.

Without missing a beat Macdonald simply replied.

“Israel.”

Of course they would. Nixon thought.

Across the nation the broadcast was also seen by numerous college students, many of whom were suffering from serious hangovers on this morning. In the living room of a three bedroom apartment in the Dinkytown area adjacent to the main campus of the University of Minnesota seven seriously unkempt and hung over students of both genders and a their guest for breakfast were watching the broadcast as well.

“Can you believe this nonsense?” One of them said with a British accent. “The Uptimers are from the future, of course they’re not going to believe in God, or any other nonsense.”

“They don’t believe in Progress either.” Said another student.

Mark Urquhart, the first student who was a British subject studying Engineering, replied to the second.

“Because it’s not actually a doctrine of Progress, it’s simply a body of excuses to use force on other people.”

And then Mark’s guest for breakfast, his oldest brother, spoke up with a clearly polished Oxford accent.

“Your first president, George Washington, once said something on this point: ‘Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.’”

Francis Urquhart was a junior member of the House of Commons for the Conservative Party. He had come to the United States on party business and decided to drop in on his youngest brother during the trip.

Now everyone in the room waited for his next word.

“The fact is that those who want power will stop at nothing to gain it--even to personally commit the act of murder–so lying for power is not a serious obstacle at all.”

The Americans in the room and his youngest brother all nodded in response.

What Francis Urquhart had not mentioned in the conversation, or even to his own brother, was that there were already two dead bodies buried under his own path to power in Cyprus.

Later in the day Francis would drop in on his sister Mary, who was married to a member of a wealthy American family, Richard Charles March II.

At the ground base in Nevada a letter with an information package that included color photographs was downloaded from the Eagle, printed, and sent by air mail to Diana Spencer, a student presently attending a boarding school in the United Kingdom.

For Francis Urquhart the lunch with his sister and her husband did not go well. The fact was that Richard March, in spite of his inherited wealth, was a true believer in the Progressive cause. In fact the way that Richard consistently looked at Francis gave him the clear impression that he was looked upon as a mortal enemy.

Richard was particularly upset at the Uptimers for their clear rejection of the Progressive cause.

Urquhart replied.

“The thing is Dicky, these people came from the 24th Century. There is no question for them as to what works and what doesn’t. And routinely working in the vacuum of space would very strongly discourage the kind of wishful thinking that you routinely indulge in.”

No one ever addressed march as Dicky, not even his wife. And the truth as stated by Francis was simply too much for him.

For Francis Urquhart the next stop on his visit to America was the Uptimer Base in Nevada on behalf of the Conservative Party.

Step Back - Part 36

Upon his return to Moscow Mikhail Gorbachev began the initial handwritten draft of his report to the Politburo. As it was to be factual be did not expect it to be well received. Although Boatman meant to be helpful in providing a written transcript of the meeting in Russian the last thing the Politburo wanted to read was the truth.

As additional commentary Boatman wrote:

The science of spaceflight works because those who practice it have actually made the effort to discover and apply the relevant facts of reality to their endeavor. The mishaps that do occur are usually the result of someone not paying attention to the relevant facts.

The theory of Communism was invented by a group of professional parasites in order to give the appearance of modernity and moral legitimacy to the stone-age practice of beating-up and killing productive people and taking the products of their thought and labor. Of course that is about the nicest description I could give to it. I basically think of the practice of Communism as being the behavior of those who chose to essentially behave as predatory animals. And as with any other predatory animal that attacks human beings it is clear that they should be hunted down and killed.

To the true believer a 100 million innocent human lives snuffed out in the pursuit of an invalid ideology is just not enough. Would they stop after killing 200 million or 300 million? Of course not.

The parasite mentalities of the Master Class as a rule see themselves as superior beings and that all other people, the productive population of a nation, exist solely as either tools that they can use to pursue their goals or as trash to be disposed of. Killing those who rightfully refuse to be the slaves of the self-appointed superior beings is not seen as an act of murder. In the minds of the Master Class is it simply the disposal of garbage.

I practical effect a Communist is a mortal enemy of Mankind. And killing a Communist is as necessary as putting down a rabid animal or destroying any other active hazard to human life.

This wasn’t about to be accepted by the Politburo at all. And Gorbachev expected their collective response to be very ugly.

Richard Charles March sat in the den of his home in the Kenwood section of Minneapolis and was reading the Friday edition of the Minneapolis Star, the local evening newspaper. The Star had published an editorial that denounced the Uptimers for their clear adherence to Capitalism.

An Uptimer named Jane March had responded to the editorial.

Your sneer is a clear indication that you may be part of a problem. Positive confirmation of this would of course require further observation and research for which I neither the time, patience, nor a research grant to perform. That would be a task that is ideally suited to an actual intellectual. As you may notice I will not condemn all intellectuals in my reply, I only condemn the false ones.

Intellectuals actually can be useful when they are honest or when they are actually paying attention to the facts of reality. The problem arises when someone assumes the position of authority in order to scam their way to survival and well being, or to further an adverse ideological agenda. As there is only one reality, which is commonly perceived by all individuals, the fraud is ultimately discovered, but all too often the disclosure occurs after innocent lives are lost.

One of the obvious indications that one is a false intellectual is their apparent blindness to the distinction between the states of Civilization and Barbarism. The State of Civilization is not only the collection of structures that people live and work in, and the tools that they use, it is also the moral condition that they live in. The foundation of the social order has a clear impact on the survival and well being of the people who live in it.

In the State of Civilization consent is the preferred basis of social, economic, and political relationships, and force is reserved as a response to the violent predatory behavior from such persons as common criminals and Communists. The barbaric social paradigm is dominated by those persons who, by tribal membership or by adherence to an ideology, assume the role of a superior being that forcibly uses other people as a means to assure their own survival and well being.

Obviously not all civilizations are perfect, which was clearly demonstrated by the Self Appointed Superior Beings who forcibly imposed the Prohibition of Alcohol on the United States in the early Twentieth Century.

To see the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism and act to on that knowledge does have an impact on the survival and well being of a person. Anyone who cannot see, refuses to see, or who actively obliterates, the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism in their work is either not doing their job properly or is part of the problem, and in either case has absolutely zero claim to being an intellectual. Though that doesn't stop them from trying.

But I'm just the commander of our surface base, so what do I know?

Richard Charles March clearly was angry. How dare this cunt in a military uniform call him and his fellow Progressives a band of savages?

As March read the evening paper and made hostile noises his youngest son watched from a position on concealment. John Andrew March had only recently begun kindergarten classes but he already knew that his father should not be spoken to as he read any newspaper.

On the morning of Saturday Evelyn Boatman had been released from hospitalization and was taking the shuttle down from the Eagle to the surface base.

Back to work. He thought.

Step Back - Part 35

Friday October 17, 1969

Evelyn Boatman was sitting back at the work station in his quarters and had just finished updating the report on the visit of the Soviet delegation when there was an old fashioned knock on his cabin door.

“Come in!” He shouted.

The door opened and Judith Grant stepped in. As a proper gentleman Evelyn stood up.

“Is there a problem?” He said.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “maybe.”

Evelyn made the gesture to Judith to take a seat near the work station in his cabin. Once they were seated he then asked the next question.

“So what happened?”

“I just finished reading Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein.”

Oh bugger. He thought. Of course when jumping to a conclusion I can be wrong.

“And?” He said.

“And I read the part of it titled The Tale Of The Adopted Daughter.”

He nodded.

Of course being right isn’t always a good thing, either. He thought.

“And what conclusion did you come to?”

“That I may have a problem.” She said.

Evelyn nodded and then asked the next question.

“Which is?”

“I want to be with you.” She said. “I want to marry you and live with you.”

He thought for a moment before responding.

“Apart from the issue of maturity I really can’t think of a reason to say no.”

She blinked. He continued his answer.

“Obviously no rational man will take advantage of a child, but once you’ve hit adulthood there shouldn’t be a problem. Do you understand?

“I think I do.” Judith replied. “I basically have to grow up?”

“On the psychological level, yes.” He said.

She nodded and then her face brightened.

“Yes.” She said.

“Was there anything else?” Evelyn asked.

“Um, no.” She said.

With the end of the discussion Judith would return to her cabin and Evelyn went directly to see Alice about the issue.

At Baikonur both Gorbachev and Leonov would go through a long debriefing on the mission. More than once the KGB Colonel had to suggest to a party member sitting in on the session that he should take a break. Three times he had to make the suggestion to a member more than once.

When Gorbachev mentioned that Boatman had dismissed Lenin as a psychopath the senior party member lit up and had to be physically removed from the room.

With the party man removed the Colonel shook his head.

“And how are we to do our jobs?” He said. “Our mission is to discover and record the facts but we are not to actually pass them on to our superiors?. And Boatman is not unique in this respect, when Lenin’s behavior is described to someone in the medical field without mentioning any clue as to his identity the doctor always comes to the conclusion that he is a psychopath. Every single time!”

Gorbachev was completely speechless at this point.

Aboard the Eagle Evelyn and Alice were having a discussion.

“So basically,” said Alice, “you just told her to grow up?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s all? No other grounds for rejection?”

“Why should there be?’

Alice was struck speechless.

Evelyn continued.

“Judith has essentially embraced reason and apart from the maturity issue why should I reject her? And in the intervening time she could find someone else to marry.”

“Not bloody likely.” Alice replied. “She won’t be looking for someone else, and neither will you. Face it Dad, you have this thing about diving in and solving problems, and this one just screamed and leaped at you.”

Evelyn knew that was an old science fiction metaphor but he couldn’t recall from what work.

Alice now continued.

“I remember the arrival of the Integral. And I remember how you and mom responded when I...”

Alice couldn’t continue, Evelyn spoke up.

“When you had no idea how to live a real human life and assumed that nothing would have changed once you were on the ground at Eden. The first lecture to correct that error was a long one.”

“The whole process of correcting the damage was a long one.” Alice replied. “You and Mom had a lot of work to do on it.”

Evelyn could only nod in response.

“So what now?” He said.

“Well, it’s a bit early to send out the wedding invitations.” Alice replied.

“Yes, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble, we’ll be inviting Rand, the Heinleins, the Azimovs, Arthur Clarke and whoever he’s partnered with...”

“Dad, this will be the biggest social event of the century.”

“No it won’t, this will not be major event like a royal wedding.”

“No, I suppose not.” Said Alice.

And then she had another thought.

“And speaking of an actual royal wedding, can we warn Diana Spencer about what happened to her counterpart on the original timeline?”

“Sure, she clearly doesn’t deserve to be hooked up with that inbred moron the Prince of Wales.” Said Evelyn. “I wrote the letter warning LRH about that dickhead Miscavage, and you can write the letter to Diana about that dickhead Prince Charles and his mistress, what was her name?”

“Camilla. Yes I think it was Camilla.” Said Alice. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

It was time for lunch.

The Boatman’s had stepped right up behind Judith Grant in the mess line. And then Evelyn had a thought.

And no, it didn’t hurt.

He spoke to her.

“Judith?”

“Yes?”

Evelyn stepped up, took her in his arms, and kissed her. It was a deep and very adult kiss. And Judith felt like she was melting in his arms.

And when he stopped he spoke again.

“The answer is yes, I wanted to be clear on that.”

Suddenly everyone on the mess deck stood up and applauded.

Step Back - Part 34

Wednesday October 15, 1969
Low Earth Orbit

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev sat back and waited for the retro-rockets of the Soyuz spacecraft to fire.

What was he going to tell the Politburo? From their perspective this mission was a complete failure.

“The basic problem,” said Evelyn Boatman, “is that the doctrine of Communism is based on a clearly false concept of human life and of reality in general, and as such is absolutely doomed to failure. There is absolutely no other conclusion possible.”

“But what about all the lives sacrificed in the pursuit of the Communist ideal?”

“The fact is that all the suffering and deaths inflicted in the cause of Communism were completely pointless.” Boatman replied. “And in the long run the Communist state, in all manifestations, has to end.”

At this point in time it appeared that burning up on reentry wouldn’t seem to be a bad thing.

The Eagle was back under spin as she coasted back to geosynchronous altitude in the transfer orbit. In his role as the mission commander Boatman sat back at the work station in his quarters and read the various reports from the staff on the ground. That jackass of a county commissioner, a Democrat of course, didn’t get the message the first time and had to properly dealt with. And it appeared that the way things in general were going in the United States the idea of moving out to Ganymede and establishing a permanent base was looking better and better.

Why?

As with the Reds, the self-styled progressives and liberals in the United States believed they had an excuse to use force to obtain their goals on the ground. The idea that their victims had the right to live by their own rational judgement as well as the right to the products of their own thought and labor was simply irrelevant to them. As with the Reds, the Democrats and Progressives in general simply saw common people as things to be used. The control and usage of common people was to be brought about through fraud if possible and by force if necessary.

In The Reformation the practice of using people and otherwise profiting through political force was brought to an abrupt end. From coast to coast in the United States there were mass graves filled with the dead bodies of the Users. There was simply no other option at that time.

In the primary timeline The Reformation was brought about in part because the virtual monopoly on the mass media held by the Users had been broken by the Internet. But at the present time even the military communications system that was constructed for nuclear warfighting which served as the foundation of the Internet simply didn’t exist.

Could the Users be brought down now?

Boatman simply had no idea, but it was now time for dinner.

It was late in the night when Senator Kennedy personally answered the door of his Washington residence. The man he let in was a long standing supporter of the Kennedy Family in the publishing business from decades back.

Geoffrey Warren spoke softly.

“So Ted, what’s the big hush-hush about?”

Kennedy answered.

“Geoff, I’ve just been given a copy of a book that was originally published in the future, and the story that it tells is nothing less than appalling.”

He handed Warren the copy of The Concept Of Government. Warren opened it as Kennedy continued to speak.

“This is the unexpurgated version.” He said. “It covers the extermination of our party in the future and those responsible for it.”

Warren looked up with shock.

“Yes.” Said Kennedy. “Our party will be wiped out and that book names those who will do it.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Said Warren.

“What I want,” said Kennedy, “is for copies of that book to be printed and distributed to our people, and it must be done secretly, can you do it?”

Geoffrey Warren nodded.

“Yes, I can do it.”

“And it must be an exact copy,” said Kennedy, “even the typos must be included.”

Warren open the book to the inside cover and pointed to the number stamped inside.

“Does that include this number?”

“Yes,” Kennedy replied, “it has to mean something.”

“Okay,” said Warren, “I’ll do it.”

In the White House President Nixon read the report on the visit on the Soviet visit to the Eagle. It had essentially gone off without any problems. The mission commander gave his guests a tour of the ship, including the main drive room, along with a brief explanation of the technologies. The Russians even got to view the quantum singularity that was the heart of the ship.

Or at least the visual effects of the gravitational distortion it generated by its very existence.

And then there was the dinner. It was as close to a formal meal that could be served in free fall as the Soyuz spacecraft had been brought aboard and the ship could not be spun for internal gravity as a result.

And at the end the Soviet delegation was told that the Uptimers could do nothing for a invalid social order. Absolutely nothing at all.

What Brezhnev and the rest of the Politburo would think about this could only be guessed.

And then there was the latest incident in Nevada. A dumbass politician, a Democrat of course, tried to put the legal squeeze on the Uptimers. And the Uptimers responded with their usual exercise of deadly force.

One would think that the folks on the other side of the aisle would notice that the Uptimers had a standard response to their nonsense. But then the folks on the other side really weren’t in the habit of actual thought.

Or so it would appear.

Step Back - Part 33

Wednesday October 15, 1969
Nevada Desert

Robert Fisher was driving his own Kentworth tractor-trailer truck on a two-lane highway crossing the Nevada desert.  He was carrying a load of corrugated sheet steel to the surface base of the Uptimers.  Even though he was a Minnesota resident this was where the work was and the fact that he was an independent owner-operator was also a factor in his continued employment. The Uptimers continued their flat out refusal to hire anyone connected to a union, especially the Teamsters. 

He was still ten miles out from the front gate of the base when  a county sheriff's car came up behind his unit and started flashing the lights.  Bob decided to pull over but as he did he hit the panic button on the GPS unit installed in the tractor as instructed by the Uptimers.  Unless there was another emergency to deal with the alert squad of Rangers would shortly come out. 

After both vehicles came to a full stop the deputy sheriff walked up to truck.

He spoke to Fisher.

“Sir, do you know why you were pulled over?”

“No.”

“You were speeding.”

Fisher shook his head.

“Deputy,” he said, “I’m carrying too much weight to be speeding.”

The deputy was clearly upset that Fisher had rebuked him.

“My radar gun says you were speeding!”

The GPS unit beeped.  Fisher briefly turned to read the text message on the screen.  The alert squad of Rangers was on the way.

He decided to talk the deputy out of this nonsense before the Rangers showed up.

“Deputy,” he said, “this tractor unit is fitted with a Global Positioning System unit.”

“So what?”

“The GPS was developed on the original timeline by the United States Navy to precisely track the position and speed of ballistic missile submarines.  The People from the future brought a full set of GPS satellites and ground units with them in case they had to do work on the Earth.  And according my GPS tracker I wasn’t speeding.”

The deputy was now visibly angry. He pulled out his service revolver.

“Get out of the truck!  Now!”

Suddenly there were two sonic booms.  The deputy looked up in shock.

Fisher spoke again.

“Deputy, I called for assistance from the Uptimers, you should place the gun on the ground and your hands on top of your head.”

The deputy raised his revolver higher and shouted again.

“GET OUT OF THE TRUCK! NOW!”

There was a sudden flash of light.  Fisher looked down and saw that apart from the skull, spinal column and rib cage, which had turned to carbon, every part of the deputy above the pelvis had been turned to smoke.

“Shit.”  He said.

Fisher had seen similar but far bloodier fatal injuries inflicted by the Communists on his fellow Marines in the Korean War.

The four Rangers stepped out of the squad lander as it slowly passed over the site.  The landing jets on the suits slowed their descent to landing.  The squad leader bounced up to where Fisher was parked.  He then opened his helmet to speak.

“Damn.”  He  said.  “He asked for it.”

“He was clearly not paying attention, Sergeant Burnette.”

Fisher could see the name and rank of the Ranger printed in black on the front of the suit.  The insignia used straight chevrons similar to those used by the Israelis, but in this case the rank of Staff Sergeant was indicated by four stripes.

“Okay,” said Staff Sergeant Burnette, “this idiot pulls you over for speeding even though you weren’t, and then pulls his weapon on you when you argued with him.”

“Yes,” said Fisher, “and he got real upset when the lander and the gunship appeared.”

“Dumb,” said Burnette, “a real prereformation cop, a really stupid prereformation cop.”

Bob Fisher could only nod.  He had not yet read the full story on The Reformation but from what little information he had it was clearly a cleanup of a serious mess.

Burnette looked about before speaking again.

“What we can do is this, we can have the squad lander and gunship fly overhead and my guys can ride on the trailer the rest of the way to the base.”

“That’ll work.”  Fisher replied.



In his office Senator Edward Kennedy received a visitor.  Douglas Green was employed by the Republican National Committee in Washington.  But for some reason he needed to speak to the senator immediately and in private.

“So what is this about?”  Said Kennedy.

“You’ve heard about the publication of The Concept Of Government?”

“Yes,” said Kennedy, “I’ve been told that it’s a load of fascist trash”

“There’s an unexpurgated version being distributed within the Republican Party.  And it’s worse than that--much worse.”

Green opened a small brown paper bag like those used by certain bookstores, pulled out a copy of a soft cover book, and handed it to Kennedy. The title was the same but the name of the author was clearly printed on the cover. 

The author was named Allen Keller.

“In what way is this version worse?”  Kennedy asked.

Green answered.

“This version gives a clear history of the event the Uptimers call The Reformation, basically the extermination of the Democratic Party.  And it gives the identity of those who carried it out, including the founder of the successor state, The Federation.”

“And who carried out the murders and founded this so-called federation?” 

“The then sitting governor of the state of Minnesota, John Andrew March.”

As Kennedy paged through the copy he didn’t notice the four digit number stamped on the inside of the cover.  And he had absolutely no clue that there was a printed computer chip incorporated into the spine of the book.

His thought at the time was that something would have to be done about those monsters.

At the Ground Base in Nevada Lieutenant March was meeting with Bob Fisher.

“Bob, when was the last time you went home to see your family?’

“About a month ago, why?”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to leave the area until things calm down.  According to my list here we have a load going outbound to Minneapolis.  Interested/”

Fisher nodded.

“Yes.”  He said.

“Okay, it’s going out tomorrow to Honeywell.”

At that moment a message popped up with a beep on her desktop screen.

March spoke again.

“Bob, I have to meet with someone, can you go out the side door?”

“Yes.”

Once Fisher was clear of  her office she pressed down on the intercom button.

“Okay, bring him in.”

Two Rangers dragged a bound and gagged man in mock western attire into the office and dropped him on the floor.  He was a member of the county board.  March walked around her desk and bent down to pull off the piece of duct tape from his mouth.

She then spoke.

“So what do you have to say for yourself?”

He spat back.

“You fucking bitch!”

“Really,” she replied, “do you understand the concept of courtesy, let along the meaning of the word No?”

“You have nothing on me, bitch!”

“On the contrary, the county sheriff was very clear when he said that you ordered the harassment of truckers making deliveries here.”

“That lying son of a bitch!”

March shook her head.

“No.  It’s amazing how truthful someone can be when a gun is placed directly on the forehead.  Your  effort to get a piece of our action has only annoyed us and resulted in the death of one of your deputies.  Needless to say it has to end.”

“You bitch!  You won’t get away with this!”

“I’m not getting away with anything.”  She calmly relied.

Lieutenant March then drew her sidearm, a M1911A1, and placed a single round in the commissioner’s head.

And then came the paperwork.

Step Back - Part 32

Starship Eagle
In Geosynchronous Orbit

The hanger was sealed and repressurized.  The Soyuz spacecraft had been secured to the deck.  To Boatman’s eyes it was clearly a relic of an ancient day.  The green fireproof nomex fabric that covered the reentry and mission modules of the spacecraft gleamed in the light of the hangar deck.

The Ranger honor guard in their deep green dress uniforms had secured their feet to the deck with grip shoes.  Both Alice and Judith as well as captain sterling were wearing communication headsets that were linked to the cluster of supercomputers that controlled the Eagle.  For this event the headsets included a small speaker which would broadcast the translation of individuals speech in Russian.  Evelyn alone was not wearing a headset.

The loudspeakers blared.

“Soviet Visitors, arriving.”

As if this were the signal to act the docking hatch of the mission module opened and the two men floated forth into the hangar.

Both Leonov and Gorbachev had changed to their mission uniforms for the meeting.  Upon their egress in free fall Boatman spoke to them clearly in Russian.

“Welcome gentlemen to the starship Eagle, I am Evelyn Boatman.”

“You speak Russian?”  Said Gorbachev.

“Yes, Mikhail Sergeyevich.” Boatman replied.  “This vessel was originally designed to cross interstellar space at one fifth the speed of light.  With acceleration and braking the journey to Alpha Centauri would take about twenty five years. As you can imagine this gives a new meaning to the concept of boredom.  As I had time to catch up on some reading I chose to read Tsiolkovsky and Korolev in the original Russian.”

“And Lenin?” Gorbachev asked.

“No,” said Boatman, “of course not, I leave psychotics to the correct professionals.”

“Of course.”  Gorbachev replied.

Boatman then stepped with the grip shoes towards Leonov and extended his hand.

“Cosmonaut Leonov,” he said, “it is an honor to meet you, sir.”

Leonov took and shook Boatman’s hand.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome”  He replied.  “Allow me to introduce these good people.  First this is Captain Dennis Sterling, the commander of the Eagle.”

Captain Sterling nodded and put forth his hand to be shook.  Cosmonaut Leonov and Gorbachev responded in kind.

 “This is my adopted daughter, Doctor Alice Boatman.”

Alice said the word, “Hello.”  This was translated into Russian and transmitted back by her communications set.

“Hello Doctor Boatman.”  Said Cosmonaut Leonov.  Gorbachev had simply said, “Hello.”

And Boatman made the last introduction.

“And this is Judith Grant, she is presently receiving treatment for some severe injuries she received on the ground.”

Both of the Russians had read of the incident in Dallas.  And both decided at that point to simply nod.

Boatman then looked at the Soyuz spacecraft and spoke to Leonov.

“You’re flying with the standard heat shield on this mission?”

“Yes.”  Leonov replied.

Boatman frowned and shook his head.

“While Russians do tend to be a bit conservative in engineering you still have more energy to bleed off during reentry from this altitude.”  He said.  “Would you accept a ride down to a lower orbit before attempting reentry?”

“Yes.”  Said Leonov.  “We would.”

“Yes.”  Said Gorbachev.

“Of we’ll have to secure the spacecraft to the deck, with your permission.”  Said Boatman.

“Of course.”  Leonov replied.

“And while that is taken care of, we could do a short tour of the ship.”

“That would be good.”  Said Cosmonaut Leonov.

“Yes, thank you.”  Said Gorbachev.

After a set of grip shoes had been issued to the cosmonauts, the group made their way to the main engine room.

“And this is the primary control station for the Quantum Singularity Drive. “  Said Boatman.

He brought up and image on the primary large flat screen monitor. The grey image showed an grid with a distortion at the center.

Boatman spoke.

“What you are seeing on this image is not the singularity itself but the distorting effect of the gravitational pull.”

Gorbachev spoke.

“A physicist at Moscow University told us that you have recreated the gravitational effects of a frozen star on the subatomic level.”

“Essentially, yes.”

Gorbachev had used the Russian term for the phenomena.  The English term Black Hole translated directly into Russian was unfortunately and commonly used as a rude anatomical reference.

Leonov then spoke.

“If I under stood the concept correctly you generate usable energy by dropping matter into the singularity?”

“Yes,” Boatman replied, “protons and electrons in the process of being gravitationally merged into neutrons give off photons which in turn are used to heat up normal matter.  Which then leads to this...”

Boatman changed the image on the screen to a diagram of the larger drive section.

“...in the normal rocket mode for insystem propulsion at lower velocities we use ordinary hydrogen for the reaction mass, but for interstellar flight we scoop the mass from outside of the ship.”

“As in the Bussard Ramjet?”  Said Leonov.

“Yes, but there are some difficulties.”  Boatman replied.

“I’m sorry.”  Said Gorbachev, “but what is a Bussard Ramjet?”

To Gorbachev the mission commander’s face had taken on the appearance of a university lecturer who had just joyously discovered a dullard in his classroom.  Unfortunately for Gorbachev the dullard was him.

Boatman spoke.

“The ramjet was proposed as a means of starship propulsion by Doctor Robert Bussard, in this the system would magnetically scoop the hydrogen in interstellar space and use it as fuel for a fusion rocket.  But there were two basic problems with the concept.  The first is that artificial thermonuclear fusion requires neutrons in the nucleus of the fuel.  Thus our use of Deuterium and Helium-3 as fusion fuels.  The second is that maximum velocity of the system is limited to the exhaust velocity of the rocket motor.  Which on the Eagle is twenty percent of the speed of light.  Now this configuration of the system is generally known as the Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket.”

Cosmonaut Leonov had a question.

“As I understand it, Hydrogen is magnetically neutral, so how can it be magnetically scooped up?”

“Good question,” said Boatman, “In our system we use a laser to separate the electrons from the proton core.  So the protons are then scooped in and used as the reaction mass.”

Leonov nodded.  Boatman then looked at his watch.

“And it appears to be time for dinner.”

Step Back - Part 31

Tuesday, October 14, 1969
Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR

Mikhail Gorbachev could hear the engines of the first stage fire at about ten seconds from the end of the countdown. At the point of zero the clamps holding the Proton launcher and the Soyuz payload to the pad let go. Gorbachev felt his weight multiply by an order of magnitude as the rocket lifted from the pad.

Aboard the Kite in orbit above the Eastern Hemisphere a sensor operator spoke up.

“Captain, we have a major launch at Baikonur.”

“Let's see.” Lieutenant Siekmann said as he floated from the command seat over to the sensor station.

It was the Proton launcher they had been tracking. At first it only had a standard shroud for an unmanned payload installed on it. Then it had been brought back from the launchpad to the assembly hall. The Proton was then returned to the pad with the payload shroud for a Soyuz orbiter on it.

Now the Soviets were actually launching it.

“Very good.” Siekmann said as the first stage of the Proton dropped off. “Let's continue to track it.”

In discussion it was speculated that the initial payload may have been a weapon. With the launch of a Soyuz it appeared that the Soviets had second thoughts about a hostile act and were now attempting a contact mission.

On the command deck of the Eagle the Soyuz spacecraft was also being tracked.

Judith Grant was also watching the proceedings on the command deck. She was doing so while standing up, having recovered sufficiently enough to do so.

“So who would be aboard it?” She asked.

“Good question.” Evelyn replied. “The command pilot should be Alexi Leonov, he's now the senior cosmonaut since Gagarin died, I have no idea who would be in the second seat.”

“No idea at all?”

“Well it wouldn't be any member of the Politburo. Remember, the Communist leadership as a general rule sees other people as something to be used, not one of them will risk their own necks on a contact mission no matter how desperate the situation on the ground may appear. Under the circumstances they'll send someone up who may be up and coming in their system but is still expendable. At this point I could only guess who it is and the guess would likely be wrong.”

Judith nodded. Evelyn then spoke again.

“But the fun part will be the question of how do they get back down?”

“Doesn't the Soyuz have a heat shield?”

“Yes, but it was designed for reentry from a low orbit. A reentry from this altitude would have more energy to bleed off and would require a heavier heat shield.”

Judith nodded in thought and then spoke.

“So if they are using their standard heat shield the Russians would need a ride home?”

“Yes.” Evelyn smiled as he replied.

President Nixon was notified of the launch. He was also told that the Uptimers had the situation under control.

Both men had remained in their pressure suits during the flight to high orbit. Gorbachev patiently waited and kept his hands to himself as the Soyuz approached the Eagle. He had no idea how to read the gauges aboard the spacecraft and touched nothing because he wanted to avoid a fatal foul up.

“Damn...” Said Leonov. “There was just a jump in neutron readings, then it’s gone.”

“What does it mean?” Said Gorbachev.

“No idea, it could be natural.” Said Leonov. “But I would seriously reconsider any plans for fatherhood.”

Suddenly an unfamiliar voice in Russian spoke over the ground to space communications channel.

“Soyuz spacecraft, this is the starship Eagle, do you copy?’

Leonov answered.

“Yes Eagle, we copy.”

“Very good, as we do not have a docking port that is compatible with the Soyuz we wish to bring you aboard through one of our landing craft airlocks, will that be a problem?”

Leonov turned to look at Gorbachev. Gorbachev looked back and shook his head.

“No, Eagle” Said Leonov. “That will not be a problem.”

On the command deck Boatman turned to Captain Sterling.

“Right, do it as we planned.”

In the mission control center in Moscow the Mission Director listened as Leonov sent a progress report on the contact with the Uptimers. But then a mid-level Party Man who was sent to supervise the mission suddenly jumped up and shouted.

“No!” He shouted. “No! Stop the docking! It is forbidden to surrender state secrets!”

“What state secrets?” Said the Mission Director.

“The Soyuz spacecraft! It’s at the front line of Soviet technology!”

The Mission Director and others in the room shook their heads.

“There has already been a discussion on this. The Star People are from the 24th Century, to them the Soyuz is a historic relic, and there are no state secrets to preserve.”

A KGB Colonel in uniform in the mission control center then spoke.

“Comrade, They are using Thermonuclear Fusion as the power source for their auxiliary generators. And their primary power plant uses the effects of a frozen star at the microscopic level to generate thrust and power.”

The Colonel was assigned to the project to understand the Uptimers and had read the translated transcript of the 60 Minutes broadcast. He then asked a friend at Moscow University to explain the concept of the Quantum Singularity.

“You may as well classify the plans for an old winter sleigh.” He said. “In any case, perhaps you should take a break from the stress of this situation.”

The way the Colonel had phrased it was an order and not a suggestion. The Party Man looked at the two junior KGB officers who had just stood up behind the Colonel.

“Perhaps, I should.” The party man replied.

Step Back - Part 30

Senator Edward M. Kennedy had set aside some time after his normal three-martini lunch to see a lobbyist. The subject of the meeting was the people from the future and the question of what to do about them? Kenneth Hudson was an old school lobbyist from Minnesota and had come to Washington after the initial election of Hubert Humphrey as senator and with the rest of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party crowd from that state. Kennedy despised the lot of them but kept silent lest they become open opponents to his own rise to power. And there was no question that after his rise to the White House that there would ever be any more opposition from the Right for him to contend with.

After the initial ritual of shaking hand taking seats Kennedy spoke.

“So Ken, what did you need to see me about?”

“It’s the people from the future, I tried to see them again, yesterday.”

“Why?” Kennedy replied. “They hate us and they are total fascist trash. They’ve made no secret of it, that ship of theirs will have to be destroyed and what’s left of them on the ground will have to confined for the rest of their lives. We can’t have them continuing to contaminate our people with their insane ideas.”

“I know that,” said Hudson, “I know that now.”

Kennedy had received a review copy of The Concept Of Government from a sympathizer in the publishing industry. The content of the anonymously authored work was nothing less than appalling.

“Throughout its history the fundamental value of the Democratic Party was power. As with the Communists and National Socialists in Eurasia, they had sought absolute power over everyone in their domain, the United States of America. And as with the predecessors the power over their victims was exercised without any restraint whatsoever. As a result it became absolutely necessary to remove the Democratic Party from power and permanently eliminate the basic structure and the intellectual infrastructure that supported it.”

The method of elimination wasn’t described in the text but it was easy for him to guess. The tract in general was absolutely appalling. And there was no question that whoever wrote it had to be found, punished, and permanently silenced.

“So tell me what happened.” Kennedy asked.

Hudson began.

“I heard that the bitch that shot the Teamsters rep had been replaced by the ship’s engineer. With the bitch replaced by what should be a dullard I decided to give them another chance for a meeting.”

“And what did you find?”

“I walked right into their office and there is a girl, a teenage girl, sitting at the secretary’s desk. Seriously, she had long brown hair and big granny glasses on like a schoolgirl, and she was dressed as a slut. This was obviously somebody’s little girl playing at being a executive secretary. So I decided to play along. The little slut immediately stands up and points one of their Sci-Fi guns, like they used on our cops in Minneapolis, right at me and orders me to leave. Can you believe that?”

Kennedy nodded.

“With those people I would have to believe anything.” He said.

“Can something be done about them?” Asked Hudson.

“Something will be done about them.” Senator Kennedy replied.

Ken Hudson had not told Senator Kennedy the full story.

Hudson had entered the office unannounced. There he found what was clearly a girl who appeared to be no older than 14 years old and was dressed as an obvious slut. He was not aware that this was a Monty Python Monday at the office and that the secretary was dressed as the receptionist character played by Carol Cleveland in the Travel Agent Sketch. The custom made long sleeved red dress was clearly designed to show off the still developing cleavage of her current incarnation.

For Hudson the surrealness of the environment was ramped up a notch when the obvious schoolgirl spoke with a clearly mature if cheerful tone of voice.

“May I help you?” She said.

Hudson replied.

“I’m Kenneth Hudson, I’m here see the new...”

“She was looking down at the screen of her workstation when she spoke.

“Just a moment...Mister Hudson...you are a Democratic Party activist and were ejected from this office. And you were told never to return.”

Hudson spoke up.

“Now see here...”

The apparent girl stood up and drew a Gauss pistol from a holster under the desktop. She pointed it straight at his head. He could clearly see that the sights of the pistol were aligned between her right eye and his own right eye.

“You won’t get away with murder.” He said.

“Of course not,” she replied, “this event is being recorded and will be replayed at any hearing held by my superiors aboard the Eagle, and I will be cleared of all charges.”

Hudson couldn’t respond.

She spoke again.

“Now, for the last time, get out!”

Hudson raised his hands and backed away, he then turned the quickly walked out the door.

He initially went to the police in Arlington, Virginia to file a complaint.

“What do you want me to do?” Said the desk sergeant. “Commit suicide?”

“I want you to arrest that slut!”

“No Mister Hudson,” said the obviously graying desk sergeant, “you want me to help you pretend that you had valid business in there. First, it is a diplomatic legation. Sovereign nations tend to get upset when their legations are violated. And the people from Alpha Centauri are clearly a sovereign nation. Second, they told you to never come back again. What part of this order did you not understand? And third, that girl you are complaining about is probably older than both of my grandmothers combined, those folks from Alpha Centauri are funny that way.”

The fact was that Sergeant Charles Burns of the Arlington Police had already met Miss Victoria Grosse and had dated her. He also knew that she was two years into her fourth incarnation, and that with great age came great sexual experience.

She also made it clear that in the long run he should find someone closer to his own age.

Step Back - Part 29

Monday October 13. 1969

On the mess deck of the Eagle Alice and Judith were having breakfast. Judith spoke.

“Alice, could I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask.”

“Are you a lesbian?”

Doctor Alice Boatman looked up from her breakfast. She clearly did not expect this question. But then a friendly visit from the Spanish Inquisition would have seemed more likely to her.

She gave Judith the straight answer.

“I’ve tried it, but I would rather do normal sexual intercourse.”

“Oh.” Said Judith.

Now Alice had her own question.

“So what brought up the question?”

“Um...I tried it myself.”

“Was it a summer camp or a boarding school?” Asked Alice.

“Summer camp.” Said Judith.

It was at this time that Evelyn appeared at the table with his usual breakfast of four scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browned potatoes, which was all covered with cheese sauce, and a glass of chocolate milk.

“Did I miss anything?” He asked.

Alice gave the straight answer.

“An intimate conversation about girl stuff.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow as he sat down. He then spoke again.

“Have you touched on why you’re not married yet?”

“Dad! You know why!”

Judith had to ask the next question.

“Alice, why not?”

Alice closed her eyes for a moment before calmly answering the question.

“There were only about a million men in the Alpha Centauri system altogether, and most of them were the wrong age or already married.”

The Evelyn spoke.

“This touches on why we mounted the rescue expedition to begin with. The fact of the matter is that the more functioning minds there are in a society the better off everyone in that society is in general. We didn’t come here out of altruism but out of a selfish desire to improve our own condition in the long run.”

“The more the merrier?” Said Judith.

“That’s one way to put it.” Evelyn replied.

A thought suddenly came to Alice’s mind.

“Remember what the dormouse said, feed your head...”

On that afternoon an Aeroflot passenger jet transport touched down at the Vienna airport. It carried a delegation from North Vietnam.

The rulers of the remnant of the Communist state in the north had decided to throw in the towel. Virtually the entire apparatus of the Communist State had been incinerated by the Uptimers from orbit. And there was no means by which they could continue the war of aggression against the Republic of Vietnam in the south. The only course of action open to the Communists was to seek peace on any terms.

In New York City the United Nations General Assembly continued their refusal to accept a delegation from the Republic of Biafra.

On Mars a mixed group of uptimers and American Astronauts walked up to the rim of Valles Marineris, the Great Canyon of Mars. The Americans were originally trained and equipped for walking on the Moon. But the spaceship Owl and her landers were available and the adapters were fabricated to allow the recharging of the life support systems of the suits from the Uptimer systems.

One of the Americans spoke to another.

“Jim, this is astounding!”

Jim Lovell looked out across the canyon. He had never thought that this day would have come. The appearance of the Uptimers was a surprise. The history files they brought back had been a shock to everyone at NASA. Lovell had personally watched as the service module that had been allocated to the Apollo 13 mission was taken apart for examination. And he was there when the faulty wiring in the fuel cell system that would have failed was exposed to the full view of everyone.

Now he was walking on the planet Mars. But he wasn’t simply playing a tourist. One of the goals of the mission was to confirm the history files on the physical resources of the red planet. The resources had been discovered and developed by colonists in the original timeline. They were here to perform a survey to verify those records.

There was much work to be done.

In Dallas within the headquarters of the former William Grant Ministries his widow Katherine was in a deep state of rage.

“How dare they!” She shouted. “How dare they mock our Lord Jesus Christ!”

On the table in the boardroom was the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. It was open to a page with a cartoon. The cartoon depicted a terrestrial human having a conversation with what would eventually become known as a Gray Alien. The alien was speaking to the human.

“Oh yes. Jesus came to us too, we gave him some candy and he comes back to us every couple of weeks. Why, what did you guys do?”

To the Reverend George Muller it was clear to him that if the Widow Grant didn’t calm down she would blow a blood vessel in the brain.

He spoke calmly.

“Katherine, they are not mocking our Lord Jesus Christ, they are mocking mere mortal men, and honestly most men these days could use a good mocking.”

The Widow Grant spun to face Reverend Muller. With the whites of her eyes fully visible as she responded.

“How can you say that?”

Muller calmly replied.

“Because it’s the truth.”

The Widow Grant stared at him silently. Again Muller spoke.

“In this case what The New Yorker did was to reprint a cartoon that originated a bit over fifty years from now on the original timeline.”

The Widow Grant was livid. She shouted back at Muller.

“You believe the lies of the creations of Satan?”

Muller gently shook his head before calmly replying.

“Katherine, only God may create life and matter, and the fallen angel has no power except that which WE grant to him.”

With full fury the Widow Grant pointed to the door and shouted.

“GET OUT!”

Step Back - Part 28

October 12, 1969 8 PM Eastern Time

Dan Rather sat back in his New York City residence. He was still quietly fuming. When the proposal was made to send Mike Wallace up to the starship Eagle he objected on the grounds that he was younger and healthier and therefore he should go up.

“No Dan,” said Wallace, “apparently your counterpart on the original timeline had committed a serious breach of ethics and as a result the Uptimers want nothing to do with you here and now.”

From Rather’s perspective Wallace had pitched several softballs to the Uptimers. They were clearly enemies of Progress and fully deserved to have been ripped a new one on the air.

The thought that Rather would have been sent out an airlock did not occur to him.

In Huntsville Werner Von Braun and several members of his NASA team had also watched the broadcast.

He spoke up.

“Boatman never mentioned the fact that the design for the Integral was based on his own Master’s thesis at Cal Tech.”

“Why should he?” Said John Linden. “He actually designed and built all of the other starships. And let’s face it, he was virtually standing on some tall shoulders while doing so.”

“John,” Werner replied, “we’re not in the Reich anymore, there’s no need to kiss anyone’s ass here.”

“But the truth is the truth.” Linden replied.

“Yes, it is.”

Werner Von Braun quietly wondered when his friend Evelyn Boatman would ever get around to writing a doctoral thesis on starship design. He seriously wanted to read it.

In the White House President Nixon had also watched the broadcast with his family.

In his opinion Boatman was clearly a master of political spin. At no point were the natives of Eden mentioned or any word of their fate. And the story of Alice Boatman’s existence aboard the Integral would silence all but the most insane critics of her actions in Dallas. There was no question that the Reverend Grant had asked for it. But sometimes a nose has to be rubbed into a pile of excrement before someone got the point.

The rest of the First Family simply sat back in silence.

Across the nation’s capital Senator Edward Kennedy sat back on the sofa alone with a shot glass and an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

He was fully appalled at the news of a future where people acted without any guidance from their betters, or to act without any other social restraint.

He thought, and then he took another slug from the shot glass.

Something absolutely must be done to stop these monsters.

In the city of Minneapolis former Vice President Humphrey had also watched the broadcast.

How can they live with themselves? He thought. How could they act on their own and abandon the Human Race? How could they show absolutely no remorse for their actions? How could they be so selfish?

In his Minneapolis apartment Thomas Archer, professor of English Literature at the University of Minnesota, switched off his television set.

Those liars! He thought. Those absolute fucking liars!

How can I promote Peace and Social Justice when it was possible to freely contradict me? And how dare that lying fascist bitch say that she was raped as a little girl by a Progressive leader?

It was now clear to him.

The so-called freedom of speech is in fact the freedom to lie, and it has to be stopped once and for all!

In campus dormitories across the nation the empty spaces between the ears of the drones of the student collective were filled with the same set of notions.

Everything about them is wrong! They have technology without restraint. They have power without restraint! They can do anything to anyone they want! They are the enemies of Peace and Progress! They must be stopped! They must be stopped by any means possible! They must be stopped!

Doctor Mark Goldman was doing rounds on his shift in the Emergency Room of Parkland Hospital. A nurse suddenly walked up and spoke to him.

“Doctor, have you seen tonight’s 60 Minutes broadcast?”

“No--why”

“They interviewed Doctor Boatman aboard the Eagle. I understand her now, I understand why she shot Reverend Grant.”

Doctor Goldman nodded.

Katherine Grant had watched the broadcast with several senior staff members of her late husband’s ministry.

She had reached a point of absolute anger beyond anything she had ever experienced. A black rage had taken over her consciousness and it left her fully blocked from any light of truth.

As far as Katherine was concerned there was absolutely no question that the Boatman family and their crew were the creations and the servants of Satan. And there was no absolutely question that they had pulled her daughter into their web of lies and condemned her to eternal damnation.

Judith was gone.

It was not the fact that she was aboard the starship whose reality she fully denied. It was the fact that she had fully renounced faith in God and path of eternal salvation. Judith had fully renounced the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there was no going back.

And it all began with Ayn Rand.

That godless Russian Jewish whore Ayn Rand!

Something had to be done. Something had to be done before more helpless souls would be lost to that whore and her lies.

With that thought her ministry formally began.

In their own home in California Robert and Virginia Heinlein had also watched the broadcast.

What could be said about what he saw tonight?

“Well done, Son.”

Step Back - Part 27

October 12, 1969

It had been a relatively quiet week across the United States and around the world. The Mafia as well as the Teamsters and other unions continued to be frustrated in their efforts to infiltrate the Uptimer base in Nevada. And at the Baikonur Cosmodrome a Proton rocket with a Soyuz capsule as a payload was rolled out of the assembly hall to the launch pad as Colonel Leonov and Comrade Gorbachev watched.

In New York Mr. Black reported to The Committee of his failure to infiltrate the Uptimer base and to suborn a Uptimer or any employee on the base. As a result he would never seen alive by anyone again.

At 7 PM Eastern Time on Sunday in many living rooms and commercial lodgings across the United States millions of people sat down and waited in anticipation of that week’s broadcast of the 60 Minutes program on the CBS Network. With some interruptions for commercial breaks the program would begin with the history of the settlement of the Alpha Centauri system on the original timeline. For this broadcast Mike Wallace had interviewed Evelyn Boatman and others aboard the Eagle.

“How did your journey begin?” Said Wallace.

Boatman answered.

“From my perspective it began with two meetings at Cal Tech. The first was at the astronomy department which owned the Niven Deep Space Observatory, this was an automated platform which has built by our family firm.”

“Can you describe the platform?”

“Yes,” said Boatman, “The mission of the NDSO, which was named for science fiction author Larry Niven, was to detect and observe neutron stars. Which are stars that have burned out and collapsed into a mass of pure neutrons. It was at the meeting that Doctor Bob Petrov, the head of the project, told me that one of their objects, which was designated Niven-69, was on a course that took it through the Solar System.”

“Was it expected to hit anything?” Wallace asked.

It had been a long time since anyone had asked Evelyn Boatman that question.

“Mike, Niven-69 was what we call a neutron star, this is a dead star and it was roughly the mass of our sun. It simply doesn’t have to hit anything. The gravitational effect alone would have altered the orbits of every planet in the Solar System, including the Earth. The Earth would have been shifted from the life zone of the Sun to an orbit that was either too close or too far to support life. And the neutron star could have caused some of the planets to be ejected from the system entirely.”

“So did it eject the Earth?”

“I have no idea Mike, we had already left the Solar System long before the passage of the object.”

“So what happened next at Cal Tech?”

“I brought Bob Petrov to my next meeting at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The big project at the JPL was the Daedalus, an automated sublight probe that was originally proposed by the British Interstellar Society in 1975.”

“1975?” Said Wallace.

“Yes,” Boatman replied, “on the original timeline. As proposed the mission was to Barnard's Star, which was at the time believed to have some planetary bodies.”

“And did it?”

“We would eventually perform a test flight with the FTL Drive on the Eagle to Barnard's Star. All we found there was a small gas giant planet in the Neptune/Uranus class and some airless rocks.”

“So what happened at the JPL?”

“Our original target for the Daedalus was the Sirius system. After Bob and told the committee at JPL about Niven-69 they immediately decided to send the Daedalus to Alpha Centauri to find habitable planets.”

“And the Daedalus found two?”

“Yes, there was Eden, in orbit around Alpha Centauri A. And also Zion, which was orbiting Alpha Centauri B.”

At this point the digital images of the planets had been transferred to film for the program.

Wallace asked the next question.

“So once the public announcement of the existence of Niven-69 and the expected effects of its passage was made you went to work on designing the ships that would save Humanity?”

“Well, we would save some people, yes.” Said Boatman. “The first concept was called Exodus, it would use a derivative of the fusion pulse propulsion system used on the Daedalus. The. Daedalus had used two stages to reach twenty percent of the speed of light. On the Exodus the first stage would go to ten percent of lightspeed and the second stage would bring the ship back to zero. Most of the passengers would be carried in hibernation. Which was developed as a means to slow biological functions and save supplies during long trips to the outer parts of the Solar System. The expected operational ratio was nine years in hibernation and one year out during the length of the voyage. But as time passed new technologies were developed and incorporated into the design.”

“Such as?”

“The first was cryostasis, in this a person is cryogenically frozen and revived at the destination. This used radically less mass for life support and allowed a radical redesign to carry more passegers on the ship. The second technology was recorporation. Here a sample of genetic material is taken and the memories of the person are recorded. The person is than recreated at the destination. By trading off a small number of people in cryostasis for recorporation we were able to recreate a radically larger number of people at Alpha Centauri. Ultimately five units of the Exodus class were built and launched.”

“But that wasn’t all?”

“No, there was a radical advance in the technology of propulsion, the Quantum Singularity Drive.”

“Can you explain it?”

Boatman shook his head.

“I would be hard pressed to explain it to anyone with less than a current Masters degree in Physics. It’s that advanced.”

“Could it be described as magic?”

“Mister Wallace, there’s no such thing as magic, but there are some advanced concepts that require a high level of knowledge to fully understand.”

Wallace nodded and Boatman continued.

“Only two ships were completed with the drive, the Eagle, which was the prototype for the system, and the Mayflower. The other ships that were laid down were destroyed before completion.”

“Why?”

“We were rudely interrupted, the central government on Earth decided that they were to be complete control of all emigration from the Solar System. As a result all shipbuilding facilities not under their control were destroyed.”

“That’s insane!” Said Wallace.

“Yes,” Boatman replied, “so was Communism. On the original timeline Communist regimes had run up a body count of not less than a hundred million human lives. Apparently the rulers on the Earth didn’t care who lived or died as long as they were in command.”

Mike Wallace would ask another question.

“But there was one more ship that departed from the Solar System?”

“Yes, , there was. There were some indications that it had another name originally, but it arrived at Eden as the Integral. It was built to carry 10,000 live passengers but it only arrived with a bit over 2,000 aboard. When it arrived there was a fully communist society in place, a virtual gulag.”

“A gulag?” Said Wallace.

“I forgot,” Boatman replied, “that term is not in common usage at this time. A gulag is a slave labor camp established and run by the Soviet state.”

The next segment began with an digital image of the starship Integral.

This vessel had used the Orion nuclear fission pulse drive and it arrived roughly fifty standard years after the arrival of the five units of the Exodus class.

Mike Wallace began by introducing his next guest, Doctor Alice Boatman.

“Doctor Boatman, you were born aboard the Integral?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe it?”

“How does one describe a prison surrounded by hard vacuum? And it was worse than a mere prison. No one aboard had a name, everyone had an alpha-numeric designation tattooed on their forearm at birth. There was one exception, he was known as the Core of Humanity. He apparently led the overthrow of the original commanders of the ship and established the Communist system aboard. He then used the cryostasis system installed for extreme medical emergencies to preserve himself until arrival at Alpha Centauri.”

“What was your role aboard the ship?”

“I was initially used for labor within the ship. But when I was twelve standard years old the ship had arrived at Eden in the Alpha Centauri system and I was to be used as an object of sexual gratification for the Core.”

“What happened to him?”

“The Core was put to death upon arrival by a real government for rape and other crimes.”

“So you were adopted by Evelyn Boatman and his wife Doctor Cheryl Boatman, can you describe the experience?”

Alice sat back and thought, and then she answered.

“Up to that point I was not actually living as a person, I was an object to be used. And suddenly I was rescued by real soldiers and brought to a wondrous land, on the ground I was being taught how to be an actual person. To perceive and think and live as a fully human being. And I was eventually asked to choose a name for myself. MY OWN SELF! Under the wondrous circumstances I chose the name of Alice.”

Wallace nodded his head again and then asked another question.

“So how did your experience on the Integral influence your actions on the ground in Dallas?”

“With regard to William Grant?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Boatman thought for another moment.

“It didn’t”

Wallace was apparently surprised to hear that.

“It didn’t?”

“Correct.”

“Can you explain?”

“Yes,”said Doctor Boatman, “everyone in the field of medicine has encounters with irrational individuals. That’s simply unavoidable, and when it happens we must dispassionately treat such behavior as if it were another disorder, such as a cancerous tumor. William Grant was a very seriously irrational man. He saw himself as being exempt from the rational standards of law and personal conduct. At Parkland Hospital he physically blocked the transfer of a severely injured patient from transfer to the Eagle where she would have received advanced treatment.”

“Even though the patient was his daughter?”

“Yes,” said Doctor Boatman, “as he caused the injuries the notion of parental consent was already out the airlock. The individual was clearly insane, he saw other people such as his daughter as objects to be used. In this case it was a form of spiritual gratification instead of physical gratification as in the case of The Core. He beat Judith because she was actively thinking for herself. He was demonstrating his insanity by physically blocking egress and emitting an absolutely vile degree of verbal abuse. I asked the police officer present to remove Grant from the path of egress. When the officer refused to do so it had become clear that there was no functional government in place. We hold that in the absence of a functional government the authority to act with force reverts back to the individual. In order to treat the patient aboard this ship I shot Grant on the spot.”

The final interview fo the broadcast was with Judith Grant.

“Why did your father beat you?”

“Because I had an actually functioning rational mind.”

Step Back - Part 26

On Sunday afternoon after the worship service at his church John Huhn sat in prayer within the tiny office within his home. In this he asked God for guidance about the people who claimed to have come from the future,

From his own view as a True Christian their claim had to be a lie, and this was the first of their lies. They openly declared that there was no God nor had his son Jesus Christ ever lived. They also claimed that the child who led them was an ancient man reborn.

There was no question these were lies. Clearly these people were the servants of Satan, the first liar himself. And Huhn had also watched the Saturday broadcast of The First Line. The host Bill Burke and his guest Katherine Grant were clearly good and True Christians. Their account of the murder of the Reverend William Grant and kidnapping of his daughter Judith struck him to the depths of his very soul.

How could a True Christian respond to these lies? And what was to be done in the long run?

Huhn continued to sit in prayer.

Obviously the lies and their true source had to be exposed. Although there was a drafting board in his office he decided to use a sketchbook to do the initial draft of the next small comic book in the series for distribution to other True Christians.

In the Oval Office President Richard Nixon was seriously wishing that he could take the day off, or better yet, most of the year off. But he couldn’t. Many of the Sunday editorials in newspapers from the New York Times on down were calling for the destruction of the Uptimer ship, the seizure of their ground base in Nevada, and the prosecution of their leaders for various crimes.

Were they serious? And how were these miracles to be performed? The various editorial writers clearly didn’t say.

Morons, he thought.

That afternoon Doctor Boatman did rounds in the sick bay aboard the Eagle. In particular she wanted to check up on Miss Grant. Shortly into their conversation Judith touched on a topic that was uncomfortable.

“Alice?”

“Yes?”

“I just read about what happened to you on the Integral.”

Alice nodded with a slight frown.

“And now Burke and my mother are claiming that I’m being used the same way aboard the Eagle, that’s wrong!”

“Yes, it is.” Said Alice.

“So what can be done about it?”

To Alice Boatman the answer was obvious.

“The answer to a lie is to shine the light of truth upon it.”

“Yes.” Said Judith.

The process required to reveal the relevant facts suddenly became clear to her.

“Judith,” said Alice, “I know someone who’s a friend of Mike Wallace at CBS News, would you be willing to speak to him about what happened to you?”

“Yes?”

“Okay,” said Alice, “I’ll arrange it right away. Now try to get some rest, okay?”

“Okay.”

With that Alice went straight to the command deck. Captain Sterling was on watch when she arrived.

“Denny,” she said, “I need a favor, I need to make a phone call to New York.”

It was clear to him that Doctor Boatman had stated this as a fact and not as a request.

“Who to?” He asked.

“Ayn Rand.”

It was clear that the doctor was dead serious.

“Yes, go ahead.” He replied.

Alice walked over to the communications station on the command deck, spoke to the petty officer on duty and made the necessary connections. The first was a digital microwave link to the ground station at Arlington. The next was the analog telephone link to New York. As the line rang Alice picked up the connected receiver.

A woman with a clear Russian accent answered.

“Miss Rand? This is Doctor Boatman aboard the Eagle, we met at the meeting in New York.”

“Yes, Evelyn’s daughter. How are you?”

“Good.” Alice replied. “Miss Rand, have you seen this week’s broadcast of The First Line?”

“I normally avoid that trash, but someone gave me a tip on it.” Rand replied. “It was appalling.”

“Well yes, it was,” said Alice, “Miss Grant and I were discussing the contents of that program and we want to respond to it.”

“We?” Said Rand.

“Yes,” said Alice, “I want to specifically respond to the charge that children are subjected to sexual abuse by Uptimers. And I believe I must clearly state how we deal with those who do engage in such conduct.”

“Something happened?” Rand asked.

“Yes,” said Alice, “Did Harry Barnes say anything about what happened to me aboard the starship Integral?’

“Doctor Barnes did say that something horrible had occurred,” Rand replied, “but he didn’t go into detail on it.”

“I don’t blame him,” said Alice, “It was Communist leadership behavior, just like Mao.”

Although Alice couldn’t see it over a phone line Ayn Rand had raised both eyebrows upon hearing this. She had read the Uptimer’s history report on Mao’s personal conduct and was not at all surprised at his depravity.

Ayn Rand asked the next question.

“So how can I help?”

“Miss Rand, I believe that you know Mike Wallace at CBS News, if you could forward him our contact number we should be able to arrange an interview and sort this mess out.”

Rand nodded.

“Yes, I can do that.”

Thank you.”

Several phone calls later the interview was arranged. A lander would be sent to Kennedy Airport to pick up Wallace and his crew and bring them to the Eagle.

Step Back - Part 25

The broadcast of The First Line on that week would be digitally recorded aboard the Eagle and played for the mission commander and his staff. Judith Grant would also be present for the staff meeting.

Doctor Alice Boatman was the first to speak after the end of the program.

“‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’”

“I’m sorry,” said Judith, “I don’t understand.”

“The quote was a reference to a historic conflict between secular and church authority,” said Doctor Boatman, “specifically between King Henry the Second and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. It was alleged that the King had ordered the murder of Becket to resolve the conflict.”

Judith was speechless.

“Don’t worry,” said Evelyn, “the incident wasn’t covered in secular schools in the United States at this time either.”

“But why did it happen?” Said Judith.

“That is a good question,” said Evelyn, “King Henry saw the English branch of the Church as an asset of the state and had appointed Becket, who up to that point was his friend, to run it as such. But Becket subsequently saw himself as an actual servant of God, and saw himself and the church as being above the state, including King Henry. Thus the conflict and the subsequent outcome. So what happened in Dallas? Here we have William Grant, the Servant of God who was apparently untouchable by the law. He chose to physically block a medical evacuation to this ship and prevent us from saving a life. The act was simply intolerable and the response to it was simply obvious.”

Everyone at the table nodded in agreement.

A thought came to Judith’s mind. Her Uptimer hosts were consistently thinking and speaking in principles. That some of these people were personally involved in the incident simply did not matter to them.

These were clearly the children of Reason, she thought.

Boatman continued.

“Now Burke does declare that a homicide had occurred but presents it as an absolutely depraved act of murder. That he lied about this should not be a surprise. When Atlas Shrugged was published he printed a review in his own Conservative magazine, which was written by a former Communist, had denounced it as a work of propaganda that called for the extermination of Christians.”

“That’s wrong,” said Judith, “I just read Atlas Shrugged and Rand said no such thing!”

“Correct,” said Evelyn, “ the truth is completely irrelevant to them, what does matter is belief in and submission to the witch doctor, thus their twisting of the facts or outright lying. To those who value power above all else nothing matters, not the truth or the life of another person, not even of their own child. And had you died as a result of his actions without an adverse legal consequence it would have demonstrated his power over the secular authorities. ”

Judith nodded.

Boatman continued.

“And now Burke is openly calling for the legal suppression of Atlas Shrugged and other works of Objectivist literature regardless of the truth. And for the seizure of our assets both in space and on the ground.”

“And what happens if they get their wish?” Said Judith.

“We will respond with deadly force.” Said Boatman. “And with nuclear force.”

Everyone else at the table nodded.

It was after the local sunset when the chartered Aeroflot flight landed at Baikonur. A very tired and unshaven Mikhail Gorbachev stepped off the airplane and was met by two men on the ground. The first was clearly a civilian and the second was a senior Air Force officer.

The civilian spoke.

“Comrade Gorbachev, welcome to Baikonur! I’m Administrator Ivan Taganov and this is General Alexi Leonov.”

Gorbachev’s eye widened as he reached out his hand.

“I’m honored.” He said as he shook hands. And then he spoke again.

“So what do I have to do to prepare?”

“Not much,” said General Leonov, “as a passenger you will need to be fitted for a pressure suit and go up in an airplane for simulated zero gravity training, but that’s it.”

“Nothing else?” Said Gorbachev.

“You should have your personal will updated,” said Taganov, “the Proton launcher is not currently man-rated.”

“Oh...”

Neither Taganov or Leonov would at this point mention the failure of the first attempted launch of the extremely complex N-1 rocket that was designed by Sergei Korolev for lunar missions.

It was Sunday afternoon in the Bronx when two gentlemen of Sicilian descent would meet with an older gentleman in a bar.

The first of the pair spoke.

“So what do you want, Boss?”

The Mob Captain opened a folder and took out a newspaper photograph.

“Those people from the future are somehow blocking our every effort to get in on their thing. This is clearly unacceptable and we are sending them a message. We got orders from upstairs to take out this bitch, she’s running their office in Washington and it should be a simple job.”

The Mob Captain handed the folder to the two gentlemen

“Okay, Boss.” the first replied and the second nodded.

Evelyn Boatman wasn’t able to sleep, he went outside his cabin for a walk and the think.

It was obvious that things on the ground were getting out of hand. Even though there was no ethical issue with the summary execution of the Teamsters goon, a virtual nest of shrieks had been stirred out.

We went up the Command Deck and spoke to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Krier.

“Jeff, I’ve decided to recall Commander Keller back to the Eagle for the time being. And want Commander MacDonald to down to take her place.”

Lieutenant Commander Alan MacDonald was the chief engineer. This was to be a temporary assignment until the entire mess was properly cleaned up.

“Yes, sir.” Krier replied.

Step Back - Part 24

In a lower orbit the Osprey was performing a photo-reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union. On the command deck a photo analyst spoke to Lieutenant Blume, the commander of the vessel.

“Sir, it appears that the Soviets had a Proton rocket erected and ready to launch at Baikonur and then they took it down and back to the assembly hall.”

“Curious.” Said Blume. “You are recording this?”

“Yes sir.”

“Very good.”

In her Arlington office Lieutenant Commander Keller was finishing up for the day when the receptionist buzzed on the intercom.

“Ma’am, there’s a representative of the Teamsters Union here to see you.”

There was no appointment scheduled and Commander Keller had no desire to see any such walking piece of sewage.

“Tell him to go away.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The receptionist spoke again.

“Ma’am, he’s coming through!”

Keller opened a desk drawer and pulled out a M19911A1 pistol. It was identical to the weapon carried by her ancestor Allen Keller as the presidential chief of staff and de-facto trouble shooter.

She stood up, switched off the safety on the pistol, and aimed it at the door her office door.

As the door opened and a large and muscular man in a very cheap business suit and carrying a briefcase stepped inside the office. He was very surprised to be staring down the muzzle of an old school .45 Automatic.

He spoke with an obviously uneducated accent.

“Is this how you people treat a guest?”

Commander Keller responded.

“You were ordered to leave and you will do so now!”

“No.” He said. “I’m here to...”

He would not finish the sentence. Commander Keller pulled the trigger and the union thug’s head exploded.

“Fuck me...” Keller said softly to herself.

Director Hoover personally made the report on the incident to President Nixon.

“So there is nothing that can be done about the incident?” Said the President.

“No sir.” Hoover replied. “Under normal circumstances Commander Keller could claim that she was acting in self defense, And under our agreement with the Uptimers Commander Keller is immune as a diplomat from prosecution.”

That same afternoon in a public television studio in New York City a red light mounted upon a television camera went on. The line director of the program being taped counted down to zero and then gave the command for action.

The host of the program, Bill Burke, a conservative columnist and publisher, spoke.

“My guest today on The First Line is Katherine Grant, the widow of the late Reverend William Grant, who was murdered by a time traveling atheist. Welcome to the program, Mrs. Grant.”

“Thank you.” She smiled and replied.

The program would be broadcast on numerous public television stations on the following Saturday morning.

On that evening in the restaurant of a upper class hotel Washington Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters, was having dinner with an old Sicilian friend.

“Can you believe it? That bitch doesn’t let my man have a chance to speak for himself and then she blows him away.”

The Sicilian friend quietly shook his head.

“Not only that,” said Hoffa, “out in Nevada when my people try to get in on their projects they are told to fuck off. They’re saying that to everyone with a union connection! Where do they get off on that?”

The friend was fully aware of the problems the Mafia was also having with the Uptimers in Nevada.

“That is wrong.” He said.

“And what’s more,” said Hoffa, “when one my guys says them will do one of those non-violent demonstrations like the niggers used to do, a teenage punk in a uniform comes out to the gate and tells him that they will kill all of them if do it. Can you fucking believe that?”

“That is clearly wrong.” The friend replied.

The commander of the reinforced Ranger company, Major Nathan Benson had personally come out to the gate to speak to the Teamsters. He made it very clear to the union thugs how the Uptimers would respond to any coercive action on their part.

With absolute deadly force.

“So what do I do?” Said Hoffa.

“Are you asking us for a favor?” Said the friend.

“Yes, to make an example of the bitch.”

The friend thought for a moment, this action would also serve the interests of the Mafia, and he nodded.

“Yes, it will be done.”

In his home Congressman Bush was spending another evening studying the history of The Reformation. And once again he was reading from the works of Allen Keller.

A primary result of the programs of the Great Society was that Black Americans were strongly encouraged to continue to think of themselves as collective victims and as being separate from Americans in general. This belief was strongly encouraged by collectivist intellectuals and a group of Black race hustlers that would eventually be labeled by rational critics as The Klan With A Tan.

With the belief in racial separatism came the belief in racial supremacy. And with racial supremacy came the belief that laws enacted to protect the rights of all persons do not apply to members the superior race. This behavior was manifested as a high rate of crimes committed against both members of their own community and against non-members of their race. During the violent phase of The Reformation race based criminal gangs made a special effort to oppress, plunder, and murder non-blacks. And as with most racial collectivists, a special emphasis was made towards the commission of crimes against Jews.

Although many Black Americans have stepped forth to embrace The Reformation there remain many who continue to hold a burning hatred for those outside of their race.