Turok's Tribe: A Sequel to Turok's Gift

By Bernard Goldstein

A SEQUEL TO TUROK'S GIFT For ten years the United States had been producing air, sea, and ground vehicles using the star propulsion system invented by John Greenberg. The new vehicles were superior that it gave the U.S, an overwhelming military advantage. During the U.S. build up, the Russian KGB had been frantically trying to uncover the secrets behind John's propulsion invention. Their failure was largely a result of John's, and his friend Emily's, interference. The Russians had a sudden reversal of fortune when they agreed to join the U.S. led mission to explore the universe. John Greenberg was to head the international mission, and the Russians insisted he had to be based in Russia.

Now they surely would be able to get the desired information. How could they miss? John Greenberg would be in their power; his pregnant wife, Anna, would be with him; and she was by far the best undercover agent in the KGB's U.S. operation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 30, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595604524

Bernard Goldstein

Bernard Goldstein has over thirty-five years of experience in the aerospace field. He has a bachelor?s degree in chemistry and a master?s in engineering. Goldstein is married and has three children. He is retired and spends his summers in Buffalo, New York.

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PROLOGUE TO TUROK’S TRIBE 

Twelve thousand years ago, high in the Colorado Mountains, Turok, son of Turok, was born. After two days of life, he was trapped in a pool of frigid salt water. The water was cold enough to suspend his life, and it kept him from bacterial deterioration over the intervening millenniums. While Turok was bobbing in the water, he received a microscopic mental stimulus brought about by occasional exposure to direct sunlight.

He was found by two men in May of 1956. They were able to bring him back to life, but they realized that revealing his antiquity would destroy any chance of him being treated as a human being. He would surely be confined as an inhuman experimental animal to be probed and manipulated by an uncaring scientific community. They decided that they could not let him be robbed of his birthright once again.

The men needed a married couple that would be willing to raise the boy as their son. Their search was complicated by the near certainty that the boy would be a retarded throwback to humanity’s early beginnings.

They found Sol and Edna Greenberg. The couple had just lost their child. After the two men promised their physical and monetary support, the four conspirators made the switch, and John Greenberg was raised as Sol and Edna’s son.

But they were all completely fooled by subsequent events. John’s childhood was much worse then anyone could have imagined. His appearance was too abnormal for them to even dare show him to the outside world. His head size had exploded to that of a mature two hundred plus pound man on top of a baby’s frame.

He was eight years old before he started walking, but once that happened, his mental and physical growth accelerated. He was admitted to college when he was thirteen. His childhood head size growth had been a result of brain growth creating a need for more brain cavity space. When he was seventeen, he invented, and patented, a propulsion device that promised to become a way for mankind to explore the stars. John founded two companies to take advantage of the ideas he was generating, Voodoo Electronics and Galactic Enterprises.

The propulsion device was so superior that the United States started using it in military vehicles. The result was a quantum jump in defensive and offensive weaponry.

The Russian Government ordered the KGB to initiate a massive effort to uncover the secrets behind the new technology. For ten years John Greenberg (Turok), with the help of his friend, corporate security chief, Emily Stone, and his telepathic abilities, was able to prevent the Russians from getting information that would let them build a duplicate of the propulsion system. This had serious consequences.

The United States was building land, sea, and air vehicles that reduced Russian military forces to a second rate level. Without a counter military build up, the United States would soon become recognized as the world’s preeminent military power. Another consequence was the Russian government was experiencing a significant reduction of influence, and strategic importance. In desperation the KGB attempted to kidnap John’s father, Sol. John foiled the plot.

Fearing that Russia would, in desperation, initiate a preemptive nuclear strike, John started work on a top secret missile defense system. Needing more time until his defense system was operational, John was prepared to move to Russia thereby giving them a high probability that they would soon have the information they wanted.

Part of the KGB effort to obtain information was directed at enticing John with potential female sex partners. They were successful with two of their agents. The first young woman became a desperate sex addict, when her attempts at gathering intelligence failed to yield results. She was murdered by her superiors because their pressure resulted in a drug and alcohol addiction that threatened to expose their spying activities.

The second woman, Anna, was much more skilled. She became engaged, pregnant, and eventually married John. Although it appeared that Anna would soon be in a position to obtain the coveted technology, the Russians appeared unwilling to wait for that to happen.

Now everything is changing. The president of the United States, Abraham Harvey, decided to share the propulsion secrets with any nation that was willing to build a space ship to join the U.S. on the first journey to a star.

The Russians agreed to take part in the adventure, hoping to obtain the information that would let them start their own military build up. As a back up to their plan, they insisted that John be based in Russia to help them build the star ship. How could they fail, they reasoned, when they had the man responsible for the technology, his wife, and his offspring, in their power?

CHAPTER 1 

We have a problem, John Greenberg told his wife Anna. Every person has a mental signature or aura. I’ve spent the last two months trying to recognize a mental aura in our baby, and he doesn’t have one.

Anna responded rapidly. Why didn’t you tell me? How do you know that he should have this aura?

I didn’t want to worry you about something that might be meaningless, but I’m afraid that our child is going to be retarded, unless I can do something. I’ve been listening in on pregnant women down at the clinic. Every baby all has some mental signature between five and six months. You’re going into the seventh month, and I still don’t hear a mental voice.

What are we going to do, asked Anna?

I think it would be a good idea to stimulate the brain to develop beyond where the normal genes would take it. That must be what happened to me.

Anna said. You’ve got me worried. If you’re right about what happened to you, it must have happened after you were born, not while you were in utero. That means you can’t be sure about what is going on. I don’t think either of us would be able to live with a situation where we knew our meddling had destroyed our child.

"I agree that I can’t be sure. The only way to be sure is when we see the results. On the other hand, we do know that the earlier we take corrective action in human developmental problems, the more effect the approaches have. Also if we want to introduce changes that will be passed on from generation to generation, we have to go back to the developing fetus.

Look at this in another way. If we do nothing, we are almost guaranteed to have a retarded child. How would you feel about knowing you could have prevented retardation, if only you were willing to take a small chance?

Anna nodded her reluctant acceptance of the idea. How are you going to perform this miracle?"

What I’m planning is a very gentle transmission of audio and video messages, similar to the ones that were used when you were educated in Russia.

"Ah yes. They used the Goldberg Variations of Bach. It was considered among the most fundamental of musical compositions, but I don’t recall any visual rou-

tine.

No, there wasn’t any, but I’m going to try transmitting colors in the shape of balls, while I’m listening to the compositions. That should be gentle enough, even for an undeveloped brain.

John limited his mental transmission to ten minutes each evening. He was afraid that anything more vigorous might damage the fragile infant mentality.

For weeks nothing happened. Then he observed the sounds, and visual images, being repeated within the child’s mind without any input from him. After Anna reached her eighth month, the baby was generating a distinctly recognizable mental pattern. Happily it was stronger than patterns normally received from children prior to birth.

Although John still could not determine whether his child would have normal cognitive abilities, he was afraid to gamble any further, until after their child was born.

Anna gave birth to a baby boy they named Steven. One month later, Steven gave his father the reward he was looking for. As the child observed a small blue ball, he transmitted a faint telepathic image of the ball.

As John and Anna prepared to leave on their trip to Russia, John’s mother Edna was beside herself. The idea that her family would soon be separated by half the distance around the world filled her with dread. I don’t want you to go, Edna told John. You know that the Russians have no respect for human life, and once you are in their hands, there is no way that our government can protect you. Tears started to flow. She knew that John and Anna had to go. As head of the international space initiative, his presence was required to help build the Russian space craft.

Mom we’ll come home often, Anna said in a comforting tone, as John put his arms around her. "At least four times a year, mom, and you can come to visit

We’ll call you every week, and I’ll be speaking to dad from the embassy phones almost every day, John added. You can also get in touch through Emily or Pete Stone. They have special lines set up to talk directly with us in case of an emergency.

But Edna could not be consoled. She had a pervasive feeling of impending disaster that hung over her despite all their efforts.

CHAPTER 2 

The space ship, Little Bird, had over one thousand five hundred crew members on its maiden voyage to Mars. Without any technology break through, it was estimated that the much bigger Big Bird space ship would be capable of supporting 600 individuals on journeys of more than a year. The inability to support larger crew sizes created a crisis situation in every ship system. It had become an absolute necessity to perform the required ship functions with a smaller crew.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pete Stone started his meeting with the group of engineers, and ships’ personnel responsible for both the running of the ship, and the design of the associated systems, "I’ve brought you together to discuss what we can do to improve the efficiency of our control systems. We currently have thirty-six ships’ officers needed for around the clock flight requirements. Add to that the sixty-three people needed for engineering and maintenance. That brings the total required ship control staff up to ninety-nine.

We use the same system that was just introduced on nuclear submarines, and I know it is considered state of the art. But frankly we have to do a whole lot better.

Pete, that essentially means we will have to depend on artificial intelligence to make control decisions rather than the present human interface, Barry Lester contributed.

Right, responded Pete. How about it Marvin? He was questioning Marvin Goldfarb, his vice president of special projects. Do you think that gang of computer jockeys, over at Voodoo Electronics, can come up with something? I need a plan, schedule, and cost. You’ll have to get a team together, and make sure it happens.

Wilco boss, Marvin responded. Voodoo and Galactic have the best talent in the world for this kind of job.

What are you doing, asked Sol Greenberg, when he entered Pete’s office after his meeting? Pete was deeply engrossed in a dictionary.

I’m looking up a word that Marvin used at my meeting. I never heard the word used before, and I can’t find it in the dictionary.

Why didn’t you ask him what it meant?

"Because today is Wednesday, and Wednesdays are when I’m supposed to be smart. It’s bad enough when I’m stupid on the other days of the week.

Then I made the mistake of calling up my smart ass wife. Em said she’s been telling me how bad my hearing is becoming, and that made me mad enough to get out this dictionary.

What’s the word, Sol asked?

Wilco, Pete responded.

Sol started laughing. ’Wilco’ is World War II slang for ‘will comply.’

No wonder you hired him. You old farts speak the same language. Besides, what the hell are you doing over here? You haveVoodoo’s buildings to haunt. With John Greenberg taking over the International Space Mission, he had put Pete Stone in charge of Galactic Enterprises, and his father, Sol, in charge of Voodoo Electronics.

I ran into Marvin as he was chasing down one of my computer people, and he told me about this new crew shrinkage program. I think it’s a big enough change to have John involved, before we are immersed in it. My take on it is that there is going to be a lot of reluctance on the part of the crew officers to abdicate their control in favor of artificial intelligence.

Pete nodded his agreement. Be that as it may, John is desperate to reduce crew size. I can’t imagine him disagreeing.

The Greenberg Ranch, as it was popularly known, was no longer a ranch. By the time John left for Russia, the ranch had become a bustling industrial center employing over 11,000 people. His two companies had spread out until their existing and projected facilities filled the Northern most 2000 acres.

While the business expansion might have been anticipated, the development of the 1000 acre remainder came about as a result of the decision to build space crew living quarters outside of the ship.

The strategy carried out was the building, and furnishing, of four multistoried apartment buildings, each capable of holding an international star ship crew of 1000 people. Here the crew members in waiting would be able to enjoy a normal home living experience, while they worked out the improvements that would allow a similar life style in space.

It also would serve as home base after missions. As soon as they were ready, the Earth Moon and Mar’s Bases would become the new proving grounds for closed cycle experiments.

In addition to the living quarters, they also built laboratories for each of the scientific disciplines. This would allow research to continue while the star ships were being built. The laboratories would also serve as training, and working facilities, for the international crews, as well as the Galactic scientists.

The James family typified how the crew personnel had progressed during the preceding years. Their oldest child, Laura, had already finished the normal college requirements for a degree in chemistry, specializing in biochemistry. She was now going on to receive the equivalent of a medical doctor’s degree.

Her sister, Lucy, was considered the best pilot in the ship’s crew. She had been selected to pilot the shuttle craft that was to take the Greenberg family, and the first coordination team, to Russia.

Lucy’s near death experience on Mars had matured her. The flirtatious relationship she had been having with a young Frenchman, David DuBois, turned serious.

David was the only French citizen in the Little Bird crew. He had joined the crew as an expert in breeder reactor fuel; it was a skill sorely needed to handle fuel waste on their journey.

David’s story was an example of how sheer determination and work sometimes paid off with big