The private locker room, in which Ben would be waiting for the announcement of his match, was located on the ground floor near the back of the swording complex. It was situated so the top swords could gain entrance and avoid the masses of people waiting for autographs.
The athletic director was escorting Ben to the locker room when he said, "It's an honor to meet you, Grand Master Ben Hillar.” He nodded his head as if showing respect. “I have followed your career since you became Grand Master of Cyton. I knew then that anybody winning that title at such a young age was bound for greater titles. I might add, I made quite a lot of money off my speculations; especially when you came in third at the Galactic Games," he suddenly paused, and then said, "but that's of the least importance,” as if he realized he shouldn’t be wasting Ben’s time with such trivia, and then he said, “What you're going to find in the Outer City is that the Tarmorians give Grand Master's preferential treatment.
“When it's time for you to enter the arena we will send a heralder. It is our custom, as a show of respect, that a Grand Master be announced before he or she enters." The director touched the palm lock to the locker room and the door slid open.
As he stepped through the doorway Ben turned his head from side to side looking at the room, then said, "Well, sir, I thank you for your compliments and your hospitality."
The director stepped into the room behind him. "Also," he continued. "during the tournament, the city council is happy to comp all your meals, and all your friends' and family's meals." He pointed at a table against the far wall. "There are three top quality swords for you to choose from."
Ben looked at the swords and nodded.
The director pointed at a console on the sidewall to the right. "If you need anything just contact us on the viewer."
Again Ben nodded.
The director looked around making sure everything was in order. "Well, I guess that's it. Good luck - I'm sure you won't need it. In fact I'm so sure that I've placed a large bet on you winning the tournament." He smiled as if there was no doubt he was going to win his wager. He turned and disappeared through the door.
Ben walked over to the juice bar and poured himself a cup of juice, then took a drink and set the cup on the table next to the bar. He scrutinized the swords on the other side of the room. Here I am, he thought. It's funny how life can take a person in different directions—like a road with many turns going this way and that, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, sometimes with dead ends and sometimes infinitely straight.
And now his road had brought him to the Outer City of Galactus VII. In spite of his busy work schedule over the years—training for the games, working for his PhD, working on archeological digs, deciphering ancient text, and avoiding, as much as possible, the politics of his job at the University, he was finally going to compete in a Tarmorian tournament.
Swording in one of these tournaments was a childhood dream come true, but Ben never thought he would be fulfilling it as a Grand Master, and especially not while he was in the middle of an expedition.
The dream had started with his father.
Henison Hillar, had originally come from a planet where swording was the main sport. He had competed for many years, but was only able to gain "B" status as a swordsman. Above that was "A" status, Expert status, Master status, and then Grand Master Status, and, of course, there was Grand Master of the Galaxy status which could only be gained by competing and placing in the top five at the Galactic Games. It had been Henison's goal to go higher than B status, but his talent was lacking.
Later, Henison, with his wife and two children, relocated to Cyton, and though swording was not the main planet sport, he encouraged both of his sons to become swordsmen.
As a child, and when he could barely walk, Ben had a sword put in his hand. At first it was just a toy—something to whip his teddy bear with, but as he got older, it became more of a study. By the time he reached nine, Ben was practicing two hours a day with one day off out of every six.
His brother lost interest at the age of ten, and wasn't forced to continue in the sport.
But Ben kept at it because he liked it, and finally came the day, at the age of 12, when he, the student, knew more than the teacher, his father. So began the tutors. By the time he was 18, they knew he had a special gift for swording.
In his nineteenth year he became the champion of Cyton, the youngest ever to accomplish this feat. And he had successfully defended his title every year since.
Ben walked over to the table and picked up a sword. He whipped it through the air a couple of times. It made a whistling noise.
The sword was three edged with a triangular shape to the shaft, about three quarters of an inch in diameter at the hilt. Each edge was dulled for tournament competition, and there was a little metal ball on the end where the point should have been.
He grabbed the end and flexed the shaft. It had a good feel. The director said they were top quality swords, and he was right.
He whipped it through the air a couple more times. Would this be a tough match? He didn't think so.
He had never heard of Xil, the man he would be dueling in a few minutes. He therefore didn't expect it would take him more than a minute or two to finish the match. It could last longer, but Xil hadn't had enough experience to gain a reputation. Still, Ben knew better than to underestimate an opponent.
He walked back and sat on a form-fitting couch in front of the viewer. He thought about watching a program, but quickly dismissed the idea with the thought that most dramas were boring and most comedies weren’t funny.
Swording, Archaehistory and the study of Earth, had been his whole life. It was interesting that the two, for a short time, were about to become intertwined.
When he thought about it, he remembered he first became interested in Earth when he found out it was untouched territory, meaning that no other archaeologists or archaehistorians had conducted any digs on this planet. As an undergrad Ben wondered why and asked one of his professors. It seems there are numerous lost civilizations and ruins of fallen empires throughout the Galaxy, enough to keep scientists busy for thousands of years. Many of them were untouched territory.
It occurred to Ben that he could head up his own dig, and because of the myth of the Aeolian Master he would have no trouble obtaining the necessary grants to pay for the expedition. After all not only scientists, but the lay people would be interested to know how the myth started and how much truth there was behind it.
After Ben finished the projects and research papers he needed for his PhD, and after he graduated, he started putting in the time and energy to organize the digs on Earth.
Is gaining a government grant a slow process? Hell yes. It took him three years to obtain the money from the committee for government sponsored programs, to purchase the equipment and the spaceship, and to recruit the personnel needed for the trip. Plus Ben this included three scientists—Dr. Mus Suzn an archaeologist with a minor in linguistics, Dr. May a structural engineer with a minor in climatology, and Dr. Jons an anthropologist with a minor in multicultural psychology. Ben chose Dr. Jons because, unlike the rest of them, he had been on three expeditions, and Ben was sure they would need his experience. There were thirty-three other men and women. These included pilots, navigators, electronic and computer technicians, cooks, laborers, and others.
Ben never realized it would take so much effort to get it together. But finally they were ready, and he could remember when they dropped out of hyperspace—always a queasy feeling, and not fun, to say the least. He made his way to the viewing room and sat down at the control station. He manipulated the necessary knobs and buttons and was suddenly looking down at earth in all its glory with blue oceans, white clouds, and brown continents. Even though the planet was beautiful, he knew it had never been repopulated because of the winds.
Mus Suzn and the other two scientists joined him and were watching as he increased the magnification of the teletrom viewer. The image zoom
ed in and they were suddenly looking at a raging ocean. Waves taller than a ten story building were throwing mist high into the blue sky, and then crashing down as others rose up to take their place.
“Quite a storm,” said Dr. Suzn.
“Yeah,” agreed Ben. He turned a dial and moved the view in the screen to the right until he came to a land mass. The wind seemed to be moving across the plains with hurricane force. The dust was thick with debris.
“The weather on this planet seems to be quite severe,” said Dr. Suzn.
Without answering Ben pushed a button and zoomed out until the screen was filled with a picture of the earth. “Is that unusual?” asked Ben. “I count twenty-seven swirling cloud patterns.” He turned to Dr. May, “What do you make of it?”
“Hurricanes.”
“Is that possible?”
Dr. May stood up, walked a few feet closer to the viewing screen, and scrutinized the cloud patterns for a few moments, then he said, “No. I’ve never seen nor heard of any planets with this many hurricane formations existing simultaneously.” With a puzzled look on his face he returned to his chair and sat down.
Ben zoomed in on one of the continents and began a sweeping side to side search. After an hour and fifteen minutes Dr. Suzn said, “Not only are there no buildings standing anywhere on the planet, there are no trees.”
“We’ll have to cancel all plans for picnics,” said Ben. He continued to watch the hurricanes. “I see no foliage—anywhere. What could cause such a phenomenon?”
“Continual pounding of hurricanes could destroy the trees and keep them from growing back, but as I said before, ‘I’ve never heard of nor seen so many hurricanes occurring at the same time.”
“Will it be safe to land?” Ben was beginning to think there would be no exploration of the Earth
But Dr. May thought it was still possible. “We can land in an area where there is no hurricane, and while performing our dig we’ll have several of the ship’s personnel monitoring the weather patterns. If they detect a hurricane coming our way, we’ll abandon the campsite, until it passes, then we’ll land and continue with our exploration.”
“We’ll be able to leave in time?” asked Ben.
“Yes. They don’t move that fast. If one turns and is headed our way, we’ll have plenty of time to load the equipment and vacate.”
After another hour the survey of Earth from space revealed several large mounds, two on one continent and one on another. They appeared to be artificial. They were too symmetrical and had shapes which indicated they had once been buildings.
Ben pushed a button and the picture on the screen raced across the continent, across another raging ocean and to the middle of another continent. It zoomed in until a large mound filled the screen. “Does everyone agree this is where we should start our dig?”
“The symmetrical shape of it indicates there is an artificial structure beneath it—probably a building,” said Dr. Suzn.
The other scientists nodded their heads.
“Good,” said Ben. “We’ll examine it with the planet analyzer, and if we find an artificial structure, then that’s where we’ll begin. Of course, we’ll wait until that hurricane passes out of the region.”
“Of course,” said Dr. May.
A day and a half later the hurricane was gone, and they landed next to the mound. The ramp slid to the ground, and ship’s personnel started unloading equipment.
The events of the expedition had gone smoothly to this point, and it seemed to Ben that success was imminent. He stood looking up at the mound. It was five stories high, but the analyzer showed that it had been taller before it collapsed. The top two stories of the building had been had been ripped off and crushed. They were lying in a smaller mound next to the larger one. There was no doubt that a hurricane had something to do with the destruction.
Dr. May was standing next to Ben. “We have three men watching the weather equipment,” he said. “If there’s any sign of a hurricane coming our way, they’ll immediately notify us, and at the same time the ship’s engines will be started and preparations to evacuate will begin.”
“Good,” said Ben.
Just then Dr. Suzn and Dr. Jons joined them.
They stood staring at the structure, then Dr. Suzn said, “It’s rare that a planet will lose its entire intelligent population. The disaster or the holocaust would have to be so extreme and so complete as to leave no one living on the planet—either they’re killed, or they flee for their lives. In the entire history of the Galactic Federation it has only happened once and now with Earth it has happened twice, but with Earth it has been very mysterious as to the manner in which the holocaust occurred. There was a nuclear war, yes, but that wasn’t enough to destroy all human life. No. And now I’m beginning to think it was the winds of hurricane force that has decimated most of the life on this planet, and has sent the survivors racing to once again colonize Ar. I think we’re seeing the origins of the Aeolian Master myth—he was, after all, the God of the winds.”
“That’ right,” said Dr. Jons. “And now we know why the myth prevailed and became readily known throughout the Galaxy. It takes a horrendous event to continuously circulate the story to other cultures on other planets.”
Ben started toward the mound. “The equipment is in place. Let’s get started.”
It took a day to burrow a hole through the dirt, and then to cut a hole through the bottom wall of the structure. Once they entered they found they had struck it rich. The building had once been a library.
“This couldn’t have turned out better if we had planned it,” said Dr. Suzn.
Ben and the other scientists spent nearly two months loading material from the building onto the spaceship. There was so much material it became a madhouse as loading machines constantly traveled back and forth from the ship to the library.
The archaeological finds included books, magazines, microfiche, computer discs and motion picture film. Much of the records had been destroyed with the decaying of time, but there was still enough intact that they would be busy for years deciphering and recording their findings.
They finally decided they had enough, and they were scheduled to leave the next day.
Ben was standing on the bridge watching the viewer screen. Dr. Suzn was standing beside him, and they could see Dr. Jons walking toward the ship. Dr. May was still in the building. At the last moment he decided to take some of the concrete and a section of the metal girding from the structure of the building back to the university so he could study the molecular configurations of the material.
Suddenly, Clifford, one of the men at the weather monitoring station, yelled out, “What the hell!?” He watched his screen for a moment, then yelled again, “A hurricane just came out of nowhere. It’s a quarter of a mile away, and it’s coming toward us—fast!”
“Computer,” commanded Ben. “Open communications with Dr. May.”
“Yes, Dr. Hillar,” said the computer in a soft feminine voice.
“This is Dr. May.”
“Get the hell out of there. A hurricane is coming.”
“Just give me a moment. I’m almost finished.”
“You don’t have a moment! Get the hell out of there!”
“Just a couple of minutes,” said Dr. May. “Hurricanes take at least two days,” and he switched off before Ben had a chance to explain that this one originated no more than a quarter of a mile away.
“Damn,” said Ben. He turned and ran for the door.
“Where are you going!?” Dr. Suzn yelled after Ben.
He was already to the doorway and the door was sliding open when he growled out, “I have to get May.”
“You don’t have time!” yelled Clifford. “It’ll be here in less than five minutes.”
Ben ignored him and ran through the doorway, down the passageway, through another doorway, down three flights of stairs, down another passageway, and finally made it to the ramp. He ran as fast as his legs would take him. He ran acr
oss the field and entered the building cursing May as he went, and not being kind to his mother’s image either. He ran down a hallway turned left and ran another sixty feet, turned left again, and finally he could see Dr. May and three other men about twenty feet down the corridor.
A three foot length of the steel girder had been cut and was lying on floor. Dr. May had just finished cutting a piece of concrete out of the wall.
Ben ran down the hall, and with a grunt tried to pick up the steel girder. It never occurred to him it would be so heavy. He pointed at Jask, on of the laborers, and indicated the other end of the girder. When they had it lifted, he said, “Let’s go!” The hurricane’s coming, and it’s only three minutes away.”
“Three minutes. That’s impossible,” said Dr. May.
“I’m telling you it’s three minutes away.” Ben started down the hall carrying one end of the girder. Then he and the other man started trotting in rhythm. They exited the library and started across the field. Just then, Dr. May, holding a piece of concrete in his hand, and the other two laborers passed them running for the ship.
The wind was blowing and stirring up the dust. Ben had just decided to drop the girder and run for the ship when a gale-force wind struck. He quickly found out the heavy, steel girder was his friend. Dr. May and the other two men were swept off their feet and disappeared into a cloud of dust. Ben was sure they were screaming as they went, but he never heard it over the howling of the wind.
The storm was slapping furiously at Ben and Jask, but the girder was acting as an anchor.
“Let’s go faster,” yelled Ben over the noise of the wind. “The hurricane will be here in less than a minute.
They made it up the ramp and fell into the corridor dropping the steel girder to the floor.
“Computer!” yelled Ben. “Have the pilot lift off.”
“Yes, Ben” said the soft, feminine voice.
The ramp slid into the ship, and then the ship rose quickly, and just in time to avoid the hurricane. They were tossed about for a few minutes, but the ship finally made it into the upper atmosphere without further incident.
Ben knew it wasn’t uncommon for scientists, especially archaeologists, to be killed when working on a foreign planet, but the death of Dr. May and the other two men seemed totally unnecessary. Ben wanted to blame himself for their deaths, but Dr. Suzn wouldn’t have it. She convinced him if Dr. May had run out of the library when they contacted him, everyone would have been safe.
Ben grumbled something about the responsibility of the team leader, which meant he still felt somewhat accountable.
After this incident all future expeditions to Earth were cancelled, except for two digs which were conducted from space. The problem with this type of exploration is the cost. Everything had to be done with robotics including the flight to the planet and the flight back. Finally there were no more digs.
But Ben had enough from these three digs to keep him and Dr. Suzn busy for a long time.
After deciphering a pamphlet they found near the front doors of the library they discovered that the library, which had managed to stand against the holocaust, or at least preserve a lot of the information, was located in a place once known as "Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.A."
Of the many books recovered from this library, Ben translated one that was entitled, “Webster's Intercollegiate Dictionary.” Quite a bit of it had been destroyed through the ages of time, and a lot of the words were difficult to read, but while he was deciphering the "F's" he found the word "fencing." Most of the definition was missing, but when translating it he found the word "sport," which was confusing since the word above it, "fence" was defined as a vertical structure built to keep people or animals in or out of a particular location. So, what did that have to do with a sport? It wasn't until he was translating an “Encyclopedia” that he discovered fencing meant the same as swording. (It would probably never be known why the English words "fence" and "fencing" defined totally different concepts.)
After translating and studying the “Encyclopedia” it became apparent to Ben that swording (fencing) on ancient Earth had defensive tactics, which made it somewhat different than present day swording in the Galactic Empire. On Earth many of the rounds of each match were very quick in duration, lasting oftentimes only a few seconds. But in the Empire, because of the defensive tactics developed through the centuries, matches would most often last all three rounds for the entire twenty-four minutes. The winner would be declared by the most points scored.
Ben wondered what it would be like to be transported back to Ancient Earth and to competed in one of their fencing tournaments; probably something like a jet versus a biplane, or like Ben squashing a bug under the heel of his boot.
He rose from the couch, walked back to the table and picked up a sword.
As he made a thrust with the sword the door slid open and an usher walked in. "Excuse me Grand Master." He said, and then waited for Ben to answer.
Ben straightened up. "What can I do for you?"
"There's a lady with some people sitting in your box. She says she's a friend."
"And her name?"
"Her name is Lyil Zornburst, and I can tell she's G-staff by the clothes she's wearing."
Ben needed no time to think it over, and he was happy to hear she had decided to come early. "Please inform her that she and her friends are welcome to watch from my box."
"Thank you Grand Master." The usher walked out.
Five minutes later the door slid open again and the Heralder, in his lively, colored clothes, stepped into the room." It's time for your match, Grand Master."
"Thank you," said Ben.
They exited with the Heralder leading the way.
Ben was still wondering why there were so many hurricanes on Earth and how the atmospheric conditions could create them so quickly. The late Dr. May had said it was impossible.
Chapter Nine