Chapter 2: Witness Tampering

“Okay, what’s the problem, ladies?”

“We have a problem with big three parts to it, all seriously in need of rectification, and one is a matter of life and death!”

“Marshall is correct, and the three parts are difficult to separate, but to find solutions, they need to be separated.”

“You’re right too, Mom. How do we find solutions to a problem this complicated?”

“Okay, okay, ladies, you’ve convinced me, we need a solution or several. To what? Can you share some details with me so I know what we’re talking about?”

“Sorry, we’re a little overwhelmed. That’s another reason we need you. A calm reasonable perspective.”

“Take a deep breath, Marshall, let it out slowly, then tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

“The beginning of your recognition there is a problem, not the beginning of the universe.”

“Okay. (breathing) Mark paid a visit to the green planet, you can see above us as a moon...”

“Stop there! Show me pictures of this green moon, so I don’t get lost.”

Thumbing buttons on her smart phone, connected to the ships intranet, Milly calls up a slide show projected onto the salon ceiling.

“Okay, right away I notice some anomalies. This slide show is in sequence? Okay, I thought so. Did you notice, either of you, every frame shows the same side of the green planet? It keeps the same side facing this blue planet always.”

“Is that important, Ricky?”

“Well it means the green planet is rotating on it’s axis and revolving around the blue planet, in the same time period. Like Earth’s moon always keeps the same aspect seen from Earth.”

“How does that affect the problem?”

“Not yet knowing the problem, I don’t know if there is a relationship. Please continue with explaining the problem.”

“Mark paid a visit to the green planet because he wanted to collect some examples of their handicrafts as souvenirs. We, the council of Aunts, decided to leave these two planets alone and leave this system. We haven’t left because a new destination hasn’t been selected yet. We have used the deep space telesco...”

“Stay focused please, Marshal. Who is Mark?”

“Mark Hest is our captain. Also the owner of everything, the ship and all it’s cargo and equipment. You would like him. He acquired this all by himself. He’s family. His real name is Ike Collins.”

“Okay, I think I might have met him once, long ago. When he visited the green planet to collect souvenirs, what happened to him?”

“That is one third of the problem. Mark imploded.”

“What? Imploded?”

“Abdicated, quit, resigned, dropped out, drowned himself in whiskey, and plans to hide in cryo. His mind imploded.”

“Where is he now?”

“Being prepped for cryo.”

“Stop him. Stop the prepping. I need to talk to him. Move, before he’s injected with the drugs. Direct the process to be stopped.”

Milly ran for it and soon returned appearing dejected. Too late.

“Can we reverse the process? Bring him back? Flush his system?”

“Yes, but it isn’t quick. If you need a report on his activities and thinking quickly, we can access his AI chip. Do you authorize that?”

“Yes. Remove the chip and put him in cryo as he wishes.”

“Removing the chip is dangerous. Inevitably it leads to insanity and suicide.”

“How is that different than what’s already occurred? Are Mark’s decisions and actions of recent sane? Is dissappearing into a booze bottle then a cryo pod much different from suicide? He’s escaping responsibility in oblivion. Death to all intent and purpose. Remove the chip.”

Milly ran off again, and twenty minutes later returned with the chip in hand. During that twenty minutes Marshall continued to fill me in.

“To gently suggest to the natives small gifts would be welcome, Mark blasted off the top of a mountain and set up, created a gift table. A non-verbal symbolic request for gifts. That’s the second problematical aspect, Mark unwittingly started a cargo cult religion. Now the natives are worshiping Mark on the mountain top.”

“Mark should have realized that was a probable outcome. Was he already drinking?”

“Don’t know if he was intoxicated, but it definitely was a stupid thing to do. The cargo cult is a bad thing to impose upon the natives but what’s worse, is the gifts they offered and continue to offer. Their little ones.”

“OH GAWD! NO!”

“Exactly, blood sacrifices. Slaughtering children and babies in Mark’s name, whatever is the local’s name they gave him. That’s what caused Mark to implode.”

“Understandable. Poor Mark. We need to write him off, I’m sorry to say. I can’t imagine a therapeutic cure for that kind of guilt. Incurable. Unforgivable. Impossible to live with.”

“That’s the conclusion we came to, but were unwilling to accept it. We thought you might have a solution. Besides, we need a captain and I need my husband. You’re drafted again, darling.”

“Well, we need to immediately stop the slaughter of innocents. That will require a personal appearance of their new deity, to wag a naughty naughty finger at them.”

“That will be an entirely new role for you Ricky. How will you pull it off?”

“What do we know about the natives. Did you recover any of the bodies of the children?”

“No, we considered it, but decided there was too much risk of appearing to accept the sacrifices if the bodies were caught up into the sky.”

“Yes, you decided wisely not to disturb the bodies. Still, we need to know more about them. Who does the actual killing of the victims? Same person always? Every-time or a variety of folks ... do they use a knife or what?”