AL Clark, Jonathan G. Meyer [the little red hen ebook .TXT] 📗

what Al could do when unrestricted. What he knew of Al as a person—made him feel better about it. ****

AL CLARK WOKE UP THREE days later; if it can be called waking up. He tried to open his eyes and couldn’t. He was awake; yet not awake, and could neither see nor hear anything other than an annoying ringing in his head. With no input from the outside world, Al was trapped inside his own head. Recent memories flooded back and he remembered the surgery. Had something gone wrong?

Al’s old friend Mister Fear knocked loudly at the door. Was this the way it was going to be from now on—had the surgery caused him to lose the use of his body?

Dr. Edward Florida walked into the room, looked at a monitor for a moment, flicked a couple of switches on the machine hooked to the half human, half robot, and brought Al back to the rest of the world. His machine body reconnected to his human brain, and Al was alive again.

He opened his eyes to the whisper of machines and fans flooding his ears. Standing next to him was a smiling Doctor Florida, and at the foot of his bed, was the captain and Doc Cody; also smiling.

“Welcome back Mister Clark,” the captain said. “You had us worried.”

Al tried moving his legs to sit up and couldn’t. He attempted raising his arm and had the same lack of response. “I can’t move.”

“Don’t worry Al; I have the rest of your body shut down. I wanted your brain to get a chance to rest without the added stimulus. How do you feel?” the roboticist asked.

“A little groggy. Other than that...I feel okay. There is a buzzing in my head.”

The roboticist answered, “That is probably the feedback from your body being disabled. It will go away when I restart the rest of you. Try and take it easy Al, everything is going to be fine.”

“How long have I been out?”

Cody spoke up, “We have been giving you a chemical to induce sleep, and you’ve been asleep for three days, but everything we have seen so far points to a full recovery.” With a big grin on his face, he added, “You are going to be good as gold my friend.”

During his recovery, Al’s friends came to see him. One or two at a time. As a cover story, they were told he had a small brain tumor that was successfully removed.

It was good to see Liz and Chris, who were happily preparing to move down to Avalon. They were excited because living on a spaceship was no comparison to living on a living, breathing planet.

Kayla and Ana came by and brought books and flowers. They too would be going down to Avalon. However, they were more scared than excited.

Kayla explained their apprehension, “You’ve had to kill four of those creatures. That sounds like a dangerous place to us.”

“Someone told me they dragged a lady right out of her tent. Did that happen?” asked Ana.

Al shrugged and tried to reassure them. “Yes that’s true, but she was only scratched. We do have some things to work out. We’ll improve the fence and the overall security procedures, and the settlement will become safer. With the help of the natives, we might be able to solve the Riktor problem altogether. It’s possible that after losing so many of their own, the creatures will decide we’re not worth the trouble and just leave us alone.”

“Do you think so?” asked Ana.

“No...It is, however, a nice thought. Don’t worry you two; we will keep perfecting our defenses and find ways to keep everyone safe. Trust me.”

A week went by uneventfully. Al’s closest friends were his only visitors, and that was rare. Most of the time he was bored to tears. His surgery was still on a need to know basis, so most people had no idea what happened to him. The people on the planet were made to believe he was assigned to the ship temporarily, and the people on the ship were made to believe he was still on Avalon. Al just disappeared into the robot shop.

He spent most of his time on paperwork pertaining to his profession, listening to Edward Florida’s music, and reading books. On the eighth day, he was smuggled out and returned to Camelot. The captain cleared the hangar bay, and the patient was ushered out directly onto a shuttle that took him home; landing shortly before sunrise. From there it was a short walk to the security office.

The settlement had changed considerably. It was more than a camp now and growing rapidly into a village. Dozens of habitat buildings placed beside wide sawdust sidewalks, with larger buildings under constructed for common use, were being prepared for habitation. Some settlers had already started to adapt their homes to their personal preferences, and a few houses had sapling trees planted in the small front yards. To Al, it seemed an excellent beginning for the time they’d been there.

Liz suggested he wear a hat to hide his bandaged head. He had no preference, and it sounded like a nice change, so he had a cowboy hat made. He was wearing that hat when he walked into the office and surprised his deputies.

“Well howdy, Sheriff. What’s with the hat?” one said with a grin.

“It’s my new look, what do ya think?”

“It looks good on you, and makes you look more...Sheriffy,” he said.

There were two men just finishing their overnight shift of monitoring the Watchers, two more were getting dressed, and two were preparing to go out on patrol. Robot Nine was already out checking the fence. All six men were dying to know what had happened to Al.

“I had to have a little surgery,” he told them. “Everything is fine, and I’ll be back to normal in a week or two.” Al didn’t want to get into too many details, so he told them the brain tumor story and brushed off the rest of their questions.

He sat down at the table and asked, “So...what did I miss while I was gone?”

Sid, the man in charge in his absence filled him in. “Luckily, we’ve had no Riktor sightings since the last attack. It seems we might have scared them off for the time being.” He paused to organize his thoughts. “The twelve-year-old girl that was murdered by the saboteur was buried three days ago next to Rudy in our new cemetery. Her parents are taking it pretty hard and are demanding justice. They want to see someone hanged or electrocuted or something.

“It seems a lot of people want to know if our prisoner is responsible for our waking up ten years late. Oh,...and we have a visitor from the natives. She showed up not long after you left. Seems to be a nice kid, maybe fifteen, her name is Kira and she’s staying with Cindy and Rahul. She’s been walking around with them and soaking up everything. I hope what she is learning does not come back to haunt us.”

The Chief of Security was well aware that having her in the camp was a risk. He thought it a risk worth taking. Developing trust with their neighbors was crucial. Which meant addressing the issue of prejudice needed to begin now.

“Try not to think of it that way. We are building a new society here, and we’re going to need the natives help. They know more about this planet than we will ever know, and in return, we can help them. It’s important to remember this has been their home for a long time, and we need mutual trust between us if we are going to live here.”

Al smiled and got off the soapbox, “How’s Robot Nine. Is he working out okay?”

“He comes in here every morning asking about you. I think he missed you Chief,” one man said as he walked out the door.

“Well, I think I might just look him up so he can stop worrying. And maybe see a few other people while I’m at it. You guys okay here?”

“We have it under control,” they told him.

It started raining as he left, but he didn’t care. He was happy to be alive, and he had his hat to keep his head dry. Things were starting to look up again.