Hunter knew he didn't have much time left. The dreamy nature of this invisible exercise made it almost impossible to tell how many virtual minutes had gone by since the start of it. Nor was he sure just how far in the future one hundred times around this moon would put him. Certainly no more than two hours or so. By his estimate then, he only had about another twenty minutes or so left on the ground before he had to think about getting out. So instead of going through all the liquid files, he began a search for the one drawer that appeared to be holding the most secret information of all. He found just such a drawer at the rear of the vault. Its door was painted white with bright red stripes crossing through it. A holo-sign indicated only the top echelon of the base's command structure had access to the contents. A neutron lock kept the door sealed tight.
Hunter bore through the subatomic clasp with ease; all he had to do was disengage the quarks from the larks with the aid of his electron torch. His hunch about this drawer paid off. Inside he found not a miniocean of brain drops but a set of mind rings. One was marked "Mission Background, Day One. Guard Duty. Year 3237."
It was just what he was looking for.
Without hesitation, Hunter took off his helmet and jammed the mind ring onto his head.
Flash!
He was suddenly standing in a crowded spaceport. Everywhere he looked, he could see gigantic rocket towers spiraling overhead. And people. Everywhere. Millions of them.
He looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a bright green battle suit with thick epaulets on the shoulders and a long, flowing cape. He had a helmet under one arm, an ancient style atomic rifle under the other. He was a soldier. He looked around and for almost as far as he could see, there were soldiers wearing the exact same uniform as he.
And the strange thing was, Hunter knew where he was. The gigantic spaceport, the monstrous launch towers and galleys. The electric city across the river to the west. He was on Earth, at the Eff-Kay Jack spaceport. The lighted metropolis spread across the horizon was Big Bright City, the capital of Earth— but as it looked almost four thousand years before.
What was going on here? Hunter joined one stream of soldiers who were walking toward one of the gigantic launch gantries. The spacecraft attached to this tower was at least two thousand feet high. It was also very bulbous, with a blunt, pointed nose and tiny fins on its rear. At this moment, they seemed to be the only thing supporting the rocket's massive weight.
This rocket was painted bright green, as were all the others in the gigantic forest of spaceships. There were loading ramps sticking out of the bottom of this rocket, twelve in all, ringing the spaceship like spokes. There were literally thousands of people climbing these gangways, all of them civilians. They were being herded onto the gigantic spaceship by soldiers wearing the same caped uniforms.
He stayed attached to the loose column of soldiers. They marched about a half mile down the spaceport's tarmac before turning in to the launch area of the next green spaceship in line. Like with all the vessels he could see, people were being marched onto this spacecraft as well. Hunter's detachment of soldiers wound up relieving another unit that had been manning the entrance to one of these crowded gangways. The soldiers were pushing along anyone not moving fast enough up the narrow ramp. Hunter nudged his way to the front of the line and eventually found himself not fifty feet away from the entrance to the gangway.
Nearby, he saw hundreds of people — men, women, seniors, kids — being deposited in a huge receiving area by sinister-looking shuttle craft flitting in and out. After a quick security bath, these people were being pushed toward the ramp and eventually into the ship itself. Some were carrying baggage. Very few were wearing very much more than the clothes on their back.
Above the entrance to the gangway was a sign that was engraved with characters, many of which were too small for Hunter to see. But at the top of the poster, he thought he recognized six words: "By Order of the Second Empire…" Stationed next to the sign was an ancient deatomizing device. Within its chambers were bits and pieces of burnt cloth, the remnants of lackadaisical pulverization. Each bit of this cloth was either red, white, or blue. Each had once been a piece of a flag.
Hunter just froze on the spot. It all became so clear now. Even though the mind ring had probably originated as an orientation tool for up-and-coming prison guards, it had told him just about everything he needed to know on this subject.
These were the people of America being deported from Earth more than 3,900 years ago. They looked beleaguered, bitter, angry, lost. Hunter didn't have to go any further into the mind ring to know where the big green ships went once they'd blasted off for space. And he didn't have to inspect the ashes of the deatomizing machine to know its job was to destroy the Americans' flags. This was a forced deportation. The Americans were being shipped out of their own country.
Hunter found an anger building so deep inside him he thought it would affect this little mind trip he was on. All he knew was he had to get the mind ring off his head now and return to whence he came. But just as he was reaching up to remove his headgear, a person passing by in a group heading toward the gangplank caught his attention: blond, blue eyes, cheeks that were pink because she smiled so much… It was Ashley.
She was dressed differently, and she wasn't smiling at all now, but Hunter was sure it was her.
But how could this be? She lived on what Planet America would become, four thousand years later. How could she be here, in the memory of this mind ring?
He tried to push his way through to her and succeeded in reaching the entrance to the gangway at the same time she did.
Their eyes met. Hers went very wide. Then came an astonished smile.
"Hawk?" she said. "Is that really you?"
"It's really me," he replied.
But just as he was about to reach for her, he found himself staring at an enormous blue screen instead. It stretched in every direction as far as he could see; its top literally went right up into the clouds.
Hunter thought his heart would stop beating right then and there. As part of the Earth Race, he'd had to penetrate several blue screens not unlike this one, and behind each he found a reality that was far stranger than anything he'd experienced since waking up on Fools 6. The mysterious blue screens were part of the obstacle course that made up a large portion of the Earth Race.
So what the hell is one of them doing here?
He put his hands up against it… and felt himself falling. He lost his balance, passed right through the screen, and hit his head on something very hard far below.
Flash!
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the floor of the intelligence vault on Moon 39. The mind ring was spinning across the floor away from him.
There were several techs staring into the vault now, quizzical looks on their faces. Hunter did not move. He was hoping they'd been alerted only by the sound of the mind ring hitting the floor, something that hadn't really happened yet.
Once they seemed satisfied that nothing was amiss inside the vault, the techs returned to their posts. Hunter slowly got to his feet, tried to shake the stars from his eyes, then put the mind ring back in its compartment, closed the door, and left.
He'd come within one inch of touching Ashley's face.
He staggered back out on the parade grounds and tried to get his bearings.
He knew he had to get going. On one level, the recon had been an outstanding success. Hunter was now very familiar with all the visible aspects of this army's capabilities. So he knew what they were: a quick-reaction space force, equipped with passable arms and a lot of transport. And he knew why they were here: as prison guards, just as the holo-spy had indicated.