The police van pulled smoothly out of the driveway of the Taylor residence. Marcus and Edith sat in the locked interior. The arresting officer read Marcus his rights.
“You have been charged with a violation of section 3552 of the State of Vermont Penal Code – Failure to respond to rehabilitation procedures. Your case has been processed and trial is awaiting at County.”
“I wasn’t feeling well. I meant to call!”
The officer shut the little connecting window.
The automatic extinguishing equipment put out the fire, but not before the synthesiser was damaged extensively. EB7 was asphyxiated. Patrian knelt over him and scanned for life forces but found none. Preliminary indications were death by embolism.
Patrian couldn’t help but notice the similarity between himself and the lifeless form laying before him. There was nothing he could do. He felt a great sadness. This was the first humanoid he had encountered in many years.
His attention was diverted to the synthesiser. Perhaps some answers to the many questions could be found here. He started to analyze-scan the wreckage.
“The fleet should be arriving in the E quadrant in a few minutes. No, all contact was lost. Long range scanners detect a small explosion with gaseous discharge. We should know what happened soon.”
Swanson removed the headset. He was one of the few that would not allow the transceiver biochip implant. When he was a young cadet with the Time-Force, the laws were different but that was many years ago. Now, all cadets had to have the implant. A State religious governing body tried to pass a law that would mandate the old-timers with the chips but apparently enough of the old-timers had enough clout left where, as a group, they were left alone.
The first reports started coming in.
“EB7’s dead! The room is damaged and almost empty and the synthesiser module is missing. The atmosphere is gone and that’s probably what killed EB7.”
“Anybody circle the asteroid to look for the synthesiser or what caused the explosion?”
“Charlie’s five units report negative. There’s nothing within a million miles in any direction.”
Swanson willed the sign-off. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening. Charlie’s squadron got there within a half-hour after the explosion. Something should have been found. The synthesiser had the capability to time-transport or receive up to ten cubic meters through its attached booth. It itself, however, was dormant.
Perhaps whoever or whatever entered the booth came from the future and was able to transport a mass as large as the synthesiser through time. But why was EB7 killed? Why couldn’t the synthesiser contain the force?
They made Edith wait in an outer room. Marcus entered the courtroom alone. No one was there and only one chair occupied the center of the floor.
Marcus sat down and waited. A voice boomed from nowhere.
“You are charged with violating section 3552 of the State of Vermont Penal Code. How do you plead?”
Marcus looked in all directions for someone speaking. It sounded like the voice was coming from about five feet in front of him.
“Who are you? Where are you?”
“I am the Cyber-Judicial Quorum. I was installed in April of 1997 to replace the CAJS or Computer Assisted Jurist System. I am completely without human assistance and act as both judge and jury as was the system popular up to two years ago.
Do you understand the charges against you?”
Marcus stared with empty eyes. He didn’t understand much of the new technology. Like most of the elderly, he just accepted progress. If you asked questions, you appeared stupid. Marcus feared the wrath of the young.
“I did nothing wrong! I wasn’t feeling well! Is this about missing the meeting?”
“To put it in simpler terms, you were told that when you were rehabilitated, the follow-up meetings were mandatory. You agreed that you understood to miss any of these meetings was in violation of law.”
Marcus’s thoughts drifted back to the first meetings.
“I don’t really recall. I suppose I remember something about not missing the meetings. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Life was much easier to understand before the power was given to the computers. Marcus remembered the days when a case sometimes took years to reach the courtroom.
“In light of the facts that this is your first offense and your advanced age and previous medical history, there will be no sentence. Future reoccurences could result in your assignment to a work program.
You are free to go, Mr. Taylor, but in the future, remember your obligations. The’re for your own good, you know. We wouldn’t want you to have any problems, now would we? If you have a problem where you can’t make it, contact the Rehab Center at least 30 minutes before your scheduled meeting. I hope I don’t see you here again. Goodbye, Mr. Taylor.”
Marcus left the same way he came in. Damned computer showed more compassion than the two police officers. How about that?
The synthesiser didn’t even look the same when Patrian was finished. Burned out circuits repaired and re-designed. The temporal field was no longer internal. The synthesiser generated one large enough to encompass itself and the humanoid.
Patrian thought at first that he was in a different star system because the red giant was replaced by a stable yellow star. He eased the synthesiser forward in time and observed the sun. Millenium passed in an instant. He watched the sun expand until it engulfed the inner planets. He stopped the flow.
Patrian eased backward in time and space. He again watched as the image of the red sun shrunk until it was bright yellow and smaller once more. He retrogated farther to a time millions of years before initial departure.
The humanoid noticed a small blue-green planet. Within minutes he landed the craft in an area lush with vegetation.
He knew what he had to do.