The Farber Compromise

By Danny Long

An alien intelligence knows that mankind will become extinct from his own doing. They select one man (Farber) and give him the knowledge that will greatly extend mankinds time on earth. All is going well until some criminal aliens arrive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532045837

Danny Long

Danny Long was born in Indiana in 1961. He grew up in Missouri and served in the Coast Guard from 1983 to 1987. He is currently a plumber living in Hazelwood, MO.

Book preview

ONE

02-16-1862

Bud feels cheated out of his turn. The major had spoken clearly when he had asked if you boys would like to exercise his pony. Willie had quickly climbed into the saddle and was gone. This kind of behavior from the young prince has become typical during these visits.

Twelve-year-old Bud Taft sits on the White House steps with forty-four-year-old Lizzie Keckly awaiting word of Willie Lincoln. Apparently, he rode off far enough so that it had become necessary for him to hole up somewhere when a winter rain had come up all of a sudden. It had stopped raining a half an hour ago, and the waiting is starting to become serious.

General Bates is standing out by the gate, and Lizzie watches him unwaveringly. She murmurs scant replies to Bud’s attempts to gain her attention.

It is her purpose in this family to be watchful for danger. Mrs. Lincoln has spoken to her directly on this matter with an intensity. The First Lady is convinced that dangers are all about, ready to swoop down like ravens. With all that goes with seeing the children along, it is her watchfulness that she promises the President’s wife. If Lizzy had been on the south lawn when the major had offered the pony, it would have been disallowed. She knows how thoughtful Willie is, and she knows that he had certainly reckoned that this objection would have been made. It is nothing less than disobedience that he had rode off. He will be spoken to. Lizzy wrings her hands.

Lizzy’s own son, George, would be turning twenty-three this year if he hadn’t been killed in the war. That special feeling for him never stopped pouring forth from her, but seemed to expand and dissipate when not directed at the living. She can’t keep her heart from melding with the hearts in the Lincoln children. They are her tie to humanity in a time when humanity is becoming scarce.

There is an unspoken understanding that she should generally keep herself out of sight, and it is unusual for her to be lingering out in the open like this, but her instincts are bringing her just shy of alarm. She will remain on edge until she sees for herself that Willie is safe. She knows that he hadn’t been feeling well to begin with, and she knows how the rain can rob a body of its heat in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

‘She always has her mind on that boy,’ Bud thinks. ‘Ole Blue-eyed Willie.’ The way she frets over him is embarrassing, kneeling in front of him to earnestly buckle his shoes and straighten his collar and straps. She is mindful of the other children as well, but it is upon Willie that she dotes on so unabashedly. For the entirety of this visit to Washington and the visits before, she has forbidden Willie to be involved with wrestling, tree-climbing—well, anything that a boy can classify as fun.

Can you hear that? The marine band is practicing in town somewhere, Bud says. She is the first half-negro that he has met, and he is fascinated by her nature.

I hopes they don’t keep the children up tonight when they playing here, Lizzie says and then stands. General Bates is moving out to the road to greet a horseman who is approaching in full gallop. Holding her dress up above her ankles, she makes swift progress across the stone path to the gate. The horseman gives General Bates a report just out of earshot of Lizzie and, after his salute is smartly returned, gallops off in the direction from which he came. General Bates keeps his head up and manages a small smile as he walks to meet Lizzie at the gate.

He is dry and riding in a wagon. He’ll be here shortly, he says putting a hand on her shoulder. He got rained on pretty good and has a case of the shivers. I’ll carry him up to where you want to put him to bed.

Thank you, she says and looks down the road just as the wagon comes into sight, turning onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

General Bates takes his hand off her shoulder and tries to imagine Lizzy as a possession and is unable to do so. He has been acquainted with few slave holders and has thought each one to be wicked and responsible for God’s judgement coming down on the nation. How could the founding fathers have been so blind and been so deaf to the luring of the Devil? He feels a flash of anger at having this theory originating from within and not being presented by the learned. These ruminations should be expressed at the printing presses and the pulpits and not locked away in the mind of a soldier.

What is going to help the boy, General Bates says to Lizzie, is seeing that you aren’t scared…that you know that everything is going to be fine.

Yes, sir, she answers.

He knows how close she is with the first family and will leave notifications to her.

When the subject of the president is brought up, it is commonplace for people to take turns recounting their anecdote where Abraham Lincoln constructs a custom-crafted piece of his genius just for them. General Bates has, himself, such an encounter with President Lincoln that he does not share. Just a few months ago, while waiting for a war meeting to begin, General Bates began to have trouble with a tremor in his right eye. A specific image of the war had been coming to his mind again and again, and it had been causing the tremor to become stronger to the point where it could be noticed. The President had crossed the lawn with just a few strides and for a moment had been alone with General Bates. Abraham had said: The past does not haunt us. We haunt ourselves.

Here comes the boy, General Bates says. Remember, let’s be a brave girl.

The wagon arrives, and the boy musters a smile for his Negress caretaker. He is wearing clothes that are a bit too big for him. General Bates lifts Willie out of the wagon bed and walks abreast with Lizzy. Bud Taft stands to the side of the path and exchanges small waves with his pal. Elizabeth is not showing, on her face, the fright she feels when she sees the paleness of Willie’s skin.

TWO

08-19-2020

Matthew Jason Farber is lingering in a hallway at M.I.T. He cleans his glasses and takes a step closer to the bulletin board. In most places, taking this much time to exam the bulletin board wouldn’t be unusual, but this school is inhabited exclusively by the hyper-minded, and such a simple task as looking over the handful of solicitations and announcements is usually accomplished on the stroll. The twenty-year-old man lingers, conscious of his heartrate.

He doesn’t know her name, but he knows that she will be walking past here, a stranger, and he plans to brashly work his way into her company. He doesn’t have to knock her socks off during this first meeting, for he knows where she’ll be later, and that will be in an environment where she will almost have to talk with him. Learning each other’s names, majors and home towns will be enough to consider this first encounter a success and provide him with what he needs to get things going later. That’s the key to making time, the follow-up.

The professor must have said something funny, for in the classroom, there is a burst of laughter. Matthew turns around and puts his back to the wall. ‘I should have shaved,’ he thinks. The students stand and begin spilling out into the hallway. She is among the first to exit, and he sees only a flash of her in his peripheral vision. He is hemmed in by some slow movers, and she gets too far ahead. She floats in and out of his sight within the young adults until they are outside ambling on the walkway.

To make this contact viable, he knows that he must keep talking, knows that even if he has to toss all his dignity to the wind, the only way through this is to stave off silence, and that will mean putting words out, no matter what.

She rounds the corner of a brick building and will be out of sight until he can round it himself. He jogs for ten yards to close the gap. Running up on her is out of the question. He’ll mill about wherever she’s going and brush up on her to say hello.

He is back to a walk when he rounds the dorm building, and she is standing there, off the walkway and on the grass, leaning back against the cut stones of the building. She has her head tilted slightly off center and has one leg propped up behind her, against the building. Her legs are her best feature. They are like a figure skater’s or tennis player’s. He walks to her, keeping his eyes off the ground. He still doesn’t know her eye color because her glasses are for a correction that is more than moderate, and one has to be squared up in front of her and looking straight through the lenses in order to pick up the color.

Hi, there, she says. Were you standing outside my class waiting to follow me across campus? She has a deadpan look for him. Because, if that is the case, it is over-the-top creepy. Farber wills his face to not shape itself into something stupid-looking. His smile is only wide enough to show her that he has good teeth.

That’s right. It’s been awkward for me, too. You don’t know how glad I am that the ice is finally getting broken.

You’ve been out there on the fridges of society mesmerized by me for some time now. I first noticed you at that battle of the bands thing that rainy night at Caesar’s.

Oh. The one where the Hobgoblins took first?

I guess, she answers. From behind the far corner of the building, five students emerge, running fast. These students take her rapt attention. It is apparent that they are running away from something.

Farber notices for the first time that she is taller than he is. Her hair is neither black nor brown. Whether each strand is one color or the other will require closer inspection. Her bangs have never been cut, and the front of her mane is pulled back on both sides and held by white, plastic barrettes. In one cheek, she has two deep dimples, and on the other cheek has just one shallow dimple. There are a few features that keep the left side and the right side of her face from matching, but unless one is looking straight on, they cannot be noted.

Actually, I didn’t know that you were there that night, he says thankful that there are words being spoken. I’ve actually been stalking you only since the symposium on silicon-based magnetic suppressors.

No. The night you smelled my hair at the Shamrock Pub was a week or more before the symposium.

I’m not remembering.

I saw you in the mirror. You looked like a cartoon character when you took a sniff at the top of my head.

I don’t recall. It must have been my doppelganger. He’s a chemistry major. He’s working on shampoos, he says. Her head turns to see a campus police car speeding in the direction from where the students had run from. It skids through some landscaping and straddles a walkway, tearing up grass on each side. Matthew elects to stand still and be quiet.

I’m going to check this out, she says and brushes past him, breaking into a trot. Farber follows. She is seeing something flying slowly, something enormous. Her line of sight to the craft is unobstructed for several seconds, and she watches it with her mouth open. Matthew spins and for just an instant, sees the tail end of the craft disappear behind a building. He is genuinely intrigued, but he steels himself. He squelches the impulse to express astonishment because he reasons that there will be a mundane explanation for what has startled his senses, and he feels that he’ll score more points by keeping the appearance of being well-grounded. This girl would surely choose a boyfriend who is cool-headed.

You look good in motion, he says coming abreast of her and feeling athletic as he matches her pace. And she does have a reaction to his gliding easily up beside her, and half of her face, the half not turned to him, smiles a little.

I’m Matt, Farber says, grateful for this opportunity to show grace under pressure. You have great form. A real sharp stride.

Did you see that? she asks. He thinks of something flip, but doesn’t say it.

They run around the building, and they each come to a skidding stop. Fathoming what they are seeing is difficult. There is a disc with a diameter of fifty yards hovering about twenty feet above a grass field. She makes the snap decision to close the distance between herself and the phenomenon. Farber is right after her. His head is on a swivel as he looks over the people standing aghast, looks over the buildings and the sky. The campus police car has stopped and the policeman is standing outside with a radio mic at his face, but he is not speaking into it. Then Farber focuses on the levitating craft. There is no motion and no noise. The air is full of electricity, the sensation more powerful than what any storm could generate. Suddenly, his shoulders lurch forward, and his legs stumble beneath him as he moves, unwillingly, up off the ground. He jerks about like a puppet played by unskilled hands. He then begins to fly, rising higher and higher. Oddly, he feels he should shout back to the girl, ask her for her name. He slows to a stop directly under the center of the craft and floats there ten feet off the ground. He leans forward and does a slow somersault all the way about. He feels unconsciousness weighting his eyelids, feels as if there is a powerful drug racing with his blood. He looks at the girl who is now on one knee, her face expressing the awe that has gripped her. She is looking straight at him, and he notes that her eyes are hazel. Farber closes his eyes and plunges into a deep sleep.

THREE

07-17-2050

Their star-ship has no weapons. The thirteen-member crew of the Adjuster 313 has been taken by surprise by this sudden, military mission that has been thrust upon them. The likelihood that these occurrences could take place is so remote that no such contingency is mentioned in the training for adjuster duty. There has not been a military matter in their known universe since antiquity, since legend. Reeling, the crew sits quietly listening to the Captain inform the ship’s computer that she concurs with the action suggested and tells the computer to proceed with this action. She does this before any of them can even speculate what the consequences might be. They have been traveling much faster than any of them had thought the ship capable of for some time now, and they are nearing the outermost part of the galaxy. The coordinate read-outs are beyond fantastic. When the quartermaster looks at her navigation charts, every pore on her body snaps shut.

The Captain is the only one with a family. The other twelve are young females petitioning for the privilege. It is unclear how many tours of duty they will each have to serve before being assigned back to the planet from which each had originated, settle into a clan and begin breeding for that clan. For each, procreation is a desperate longing and at the heart of every prayer. Their species has one common religion, and this religion hangs a shameful stigma on dying before breeding.

The twelve had been born together and had enlisted together. They have been in space for one one-hundredths of an expected life span, moving from solar system to solar system so that they may influence asteroids and comets in an effort to put off, until untold millennium, the time these objects will collide with planets or moons.

Each crewmember has reasoned the situation to its likely end, and each has arrived at the same conjecture. Returning to their home solar system would require this same unimaginable speed that they are experiencing now if they were to expect to arrive within their lifetime. Hitherto this occurrence, each had thought that the capability of this speed did not exist. The easy presumption is that the ones who decide what is best for all would very likely want this capability to remain a secret. The life-paths of thirteen crewmembers would certainly not be a consideration when plotting this mission.

But no one communicates this to another. Each understands that this is a good time to remain quiet.

The computer is calling for action that will bring their craft to an all-stop relative to the closest star, a yellow sun. The Captain agrees, and they travel in silence until they obtain those coordinates. The ship’s towing beam takes aim at what seems to be empty space. The lighting on the bridge changes to compensate for the sunlight pouring in through the windows. The computer rattles off some codes that are meaningless to everyone except the Captain. This time she does hesitate. She stands up from the Captain’s chair and shouts to the ceiling. I relinquish functions of this ship to the secret, integral, military program.

So says your crew? The computer calmly asks.

Aye, from most of the crew immediately and then, one by one, stragglers answer to the affirmative until there is only one left who has not responded. It is the quartermaster. She has been confused and wondering from control panel to control panel with a look of astonishment about her. Nothing in her training has prepared her for this. Aye, she says, and the ship shutters enough to cause everyone to reconcile their balance. Two large components of Adjuster 313 break free and fly off to the patch of empty sky that their towing beam is focusing on. A scintillating, sparkling tail emerges from each component, and the tails are of such length that it soon becomes clear that the two are flying in a perfect circle, chasing each other. The components share the same path, only on opposite sides of the circle, spinning around and around, their tails yellow and then slowly changing through all the colors until they are yellow again.

The computer makes fine adjustments to the focus of the tractor beam to find the exact center of this circle. The control panels have all gone dark. Whatever the computer has in mind, informing the crew has been deemed unnecessary. They all move to the front window. They touch and intertwine tentacles in an effort to comfort one other. Their eyes are just inches from the glass. They watch what had just been components of the ship—vessels unto themselves now—chasing each other faster and faster, their tails growing in length and in luminosity until the circle is nearly unbroken.

My sisters, the Captain begins. I’m certain that if we were in harm’s way, the computer would have informed us so that we might tally our prayers.

Captain, the quartermaster mummers, You’ve done an exemplary job under difficult conditions.

Here, here, a few say in harmony. The Captain looks about her crew and sees that each has drawn her tentacles in close, and the tips of their tentacles are quivering. A communal declaration is established by the release of scents and spores.

Then, the anomaly begins. Of every color, streaks of light beam from this circle in the sky and radiate outward. More complex patterns emerge and spill out into spirals that overlap themselves again and again. This builds in intensity until a sharp, black sphere develops and serves as the core of all these spirals.

As a group, these women sense that something is going to emerge from the sphere.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a distant region of the galaxy, the seven-man crew of a triangular battle craft is receiving its orders to retreat by means of a time-space jump. Their ship is the last surviving ship from what had been an armada locked in an epic battle with the Earns. All the other ships have been destroyed, their crews killed.

Did I hear your crash-protection chamber’s dung extractor initiate, Walzlo? Sam-sam teases.

Be quiet, you afterbirth hoarder! Walzlo snaps back, concentrating on the display in front of him. He is piloting this space-ship. The readings are fuzzy already, so I’ll have to hit the switch before we get down to alto scale. It will be very rough. It will be dirty and most likely will kill us all. Clamp down full, everyone.

Their species has one common religion, and this religion allows only those killed in battle to make it to the better heavens. All the souls that have died in this battle reside in the most splendid of all heavens. It is quite possible that these last