Swallowing his current bite of burger, he turned to Pollux. "Do you know about what I just went through?" He wasn't asking hatefully or angrily. He just wanted to know if she was familiar with what he'd seen.
"Yes, I'm familiar with that case. There was massive outcry on behalf of the Artarian people. Although in the original hearing, the Hyclerian people were required to rescue as much Artarian culture as they could, in addition to a twenty year blockade of non-emergency goods. Most people thought the punishment of the Hyclerian people was far too light, and the execution of the council should have included their families as well."
"I don't understand that. The Hyclerian people themselves had no direct hand in this crime. The only reason they were punished to begin with was because they elected the council. As for executing the families of the Counselors; again, why? They had done nothing wrong," Jimmy replied.
Anna nodded from behind Pollux. "The point of that lesson was that not all the bad guys are bad. Some are just stupid, and others are innocent." Anne closed her eyes for a moment. "I see you completely skipped interviewing the Hyclerian business leaders. May I ask why?"
Jimmy nodded and hurriedly swallowed the French fry. "No reason to call them except for gut instinct. There was no evidence pointing to them, and no one mentioned them at all. It's one of those things where you know someone's guilty, but you can't prove it; even to yourself."
Anne nodded. "Such was the finding of the original Arbiter. That lesson took most of this 'day' Tomorrow you will begin to learn Earth Law. There are also some real duties that you and Pollux must attend to as Arbiter. You did exceptionally well today. Rest well, and I'll see you in the morning."
"Won't you be staying here as well?" Jimmy asked.
Anne smiled. "No, I must devote a few processing cycles to getting my teaching facilities in the Citadel and out in the ecosphere ready for students. I must also assimilate a great deal of knowledge from your former homeworld. I hope to be ready by the time we begin to receive immigrants."
Jimmy nodded agreement. "I keep forgetting that everyone has other duties that they have to attend to as well. Thank you for the time you can give to us."
Anne's smile deepened. She was really beginning to understand why Pollux selected this one. "It's no problem, Jimmy. It's a great joy for me to be teaching again after all these years. Now if you'll excuse me?"
"Of course, see you tomorrow!" Jimmy said as she walked down the path away from the beach.
"Why didn't she just fade out like the rest of you do?" Jimmy asked his newest love.
"She has taken a particular liking to this setting. I think she may eventually feel a bond with your homeworld strong enough to consider it hers as well. Even for the AIs, it's comforting to know you have a homeworld out there somewhere," Pollux said.
The following morning, Jimmy was subjected to a different lesson, this one was not as exciting as the first one had been. He actually thought he fell asleep a couple of times, and was going to apologize to Anne for wasting her time, except that, just before the lesson was over, he was given a test and was amazed that he knew all the answers. He mentioned as much to Pollux once he got back to the beach.
"That's the benefit of learning in here. The information itself was just downloaded into your brain. The test that you were given wasn't to test your knowledge, it was to make sure your mind could access the data accurately."
"Well, I do feel smarter! It's probably a good thing I won't be returning to my old school; I'd have an unfair advantage over the rest of the students!" Jimmy said grinning.
Pollux smiled lovingly at him. "You are far smarter than you were when you arrived. You're beginning to be able to utilize my data streams. Soon you'll be able to feel me inside you. That's when our joining will be complete." She paused to switch mental gears. "I'm afraid our first act as Arbiter isn't going to be a joyous one."
While she had been talking, Jimmy noticed that Sheba stepped out of the treeline, and was walking toward them. Her normally breath-taking smile was subdued as she approached.
Jimmy immediately knew something was wrong. But before he could ask, Pollux put her hand on his arm. "Be patient, Sheba is here to brief us on the situation on Earth."
The three of them took seats near the bonfire pit, since it was only mid-day, no fire was burning. "Before you begin, Sheba, I'd like to have Mom and Holly here as well. I value their advice, and sometimes they help me see angles I wouldn't have considered before."
Pollux nodded, "Both have recently finished lessons, and are available. I'll ask them to come." She was silent while she sent the request.
Soon, the two women exited the path holding hands, and headed for Jimmy and the two AIs. When they got near, Janie turned her smile on the three. "Pollux said you would like our opinions?"
Jimmy nodded, "Yes I do. Unfortunately, it isn't light-hearted this time. It's very serious." He turned to the beautiful Navigator. "Sheba?"
Sheba stood, and filled the four in on everything she could find out about the threat the President had received. "They do seem to be acting on the threat, orders have been sent to begin the withdrawal of US troops from the middle-east. At the same time, something strange is happening with the senate majority leader, Senator Herald. He's met with the President twice in the last three days, and at one of those meetings a junior Democratic Senator was included, but when it was over, Herald and the junior Senator left acting like best friends.
"Senator Gerard Herald is not known for his acceptance or for much tolerance of junior Senators; especially Democratic ones!" Sheba finished, but remained standing in case someone wanted to ask her a question.
"Do we know if the threat is real?" Jimmy asked.
Sheba nodded. "I put a couple of drones in orbit and began scanning immediately. So far, I've found three explosive devices, and several fake ones. The Largest I've found is in a position to destabilize most of the west coast. If detonated, everything south of San Francisco is pretty much toast. The other two devices are in a position to 'assist' the big one; with their help, you can kiss Seattle and Portland goodbye as well. There's about a forty percent chance that Mount Rainier will erupt as a result of the Earthquake. There is a smaller chance for the volcanoes farther north, but they could erupt as well. There is a less than five percent chance that the entire tectonic place will shift enough to cause a catastrophic chain reaction, but if more bombs are in the right places, it could be guaranteed."
"Someone is actually going to detonate that?" Holly asked. "It would kill millions of people! How can they do that?"
"It sounds like we are dealing with some very high-tech, environmental terrorists. I could never figure them out; 'if you don't clean up the mess you made, we're going to make it so you can never clean it up!'" Jimmy said in frustration, then sighed. "Okay, the question is, what do we do about it, and how can we help make sure this doesn't happen? Since we don't have the manpower or the facilities of the inquisitor unit, perhaps we can ask Athena to undertake the investigation to figure out who originated this. Sheba, I'd appreciate it if you'd please continue to attempt locating the devices. The more of them we find the better off we'll be."
"Of course, Arbiter." Sheba replied and bowed her head.
Jimmy winked at her. "Now, all we need to figure out is how to do anything when we have no people."
"Arbiter, if I might offer a suggestion?" Sheba said as Athena stepped onto the beach heading for them.
"Please; I'll listen to anything at this point," Jimmy replied.
"Because of the potential for disaster, I would normally never make such a suggestion, but you might want to consider that this Citadel is capable of time travel. Obviously going into the future wouldn't be safe, but we should be able to go into the past a few years. Then we would have time to recruit people, as well as do some pre-investigation as to who could have done this. It would also allow you to finish your training," Sheba replied.
Pollux took a sharp intake of breath when she heard Sheba's suggestion, but still didn't say anything. Jimmy was doing well, and the bond between them was working, even if he wasn't aware of it yet.
"Reporting as ordered, Arbiter!" Athena said, and saluted.
Jimmy smiled at the small women. "Pull up a log, Athena, we might have a mission for you." He turned to Pollux. "Would you care to tell me why you were shocked by Sheba's suggestion, as well as why I'm uneasy about considering it?"
"You're uneasy because the bond between us is working, but it's not complete yet so you don't know why you feel the way you do," Pollux replied. "What Sheba is suggesting is extremely dangerous. If we change the past in any way, the time line will diverge into a new one, and we won't return to this one. We are also facing a major paradox event; This Citadel has been in this universe for hundreds of your years. If it had gone back, we would have detected it. Thus since no detection took place, it didn't go back in this time line."
"Forgive me Arbiter, but taking the whole Citadel back wasn't exactly what I had in mind. We could establish a bridge. Granted, it would take a lot more power, but we are in the best place to refuel," Sheba replied.
"I have to advise caution, Arbiter. In order to maintain a temporal lock on our people, Sheba would need to devote almost all of her processing abilities on the bridge. If we would need to move, we couldn't," Athena added.
Jimmy nodded his understanding. "What happens if the past gets changed in this instance?"
"In our original universe, the event wouldn't be allowed to happen, but the link to the bridge would be broken, and the travelers would simply cease to exist. I honestly have no idea of what would happen in this universe," Sheba said. "That would be part of the risk."
Pollux smiled as she saw what Jimmy was thinking, and began acting on it. "Okay, we'll go with the temporal bridge. However, we need to have a few more of the AI's awake before anyone leaves here. I want the weapons systems activated and manned in case of emergencies, but not by you, Athena."
He smiled at the surprised woman/AI. "You're going back to investigate this current crisis. I need Prinea and Anne to begin research on likely candidates to recruit. We can only take people that, for one reason or another, will not be continuing in that time. For example, General Chuck Yeager recently passed away. He would've made an excellent recruit." While he'd been speaking, Both Prinea and Anne had appeared by them.
"Have any of Grista's helpers been awakened yet?" Jimmy asked, turning to Pollux.
"A few have been, but I'm in the process of awakening the rest. Why? Did you have a task for her as well?" Pollux asked grinning because she already knew the answer.
Jimmy kissed her nose. "I so look forward to the day when I can read your mind too!"
Grista appeared just as Jimmy was about to assign her task. "Is there a way to replicate a human body? It needn't be alive, just appear to have once been alive."
She thought for a moment. "Yes, we could do that, although the problem would be getting the body to look like the person you are replacing."
Prinea spoke. "Not much of a problem. We can use the same program I use to create the avatars; we simply insert the subject's DNA instead of what I program. I'll have to disable some of the safety measures that prevent flaws and disease, but it can be done. It'll take a couple of hours for each body though, the more complicated something is, the longer it takes."
Again, Jimmy nodded acceptance.
"May I make a suggestion, Jimmy?" Holly asked.
He grinned. "That's why I asked you here, pretty lady."
She beamed at the compliment. "You have tasked Athena with the investigation of the terrorists. There is someone that's better suited to that job, although I think Athena should still go on the mission."
"Really? Who would be better?" Jimmy asked.
Even Athena looked interested, but slightly relieved. "The office of the Inquisitor is responsible for the investigation of crimes. Athena is military, and would be better suited to recruiting some of the military people we're going to need; especially the officers," Holly explained. "I think the Inquisitor AI would be the best one to investigate this."
Jimmy slapped his forehead. "Sometimes I am so dense! Now you know why I asked you and Mom here! Thank you, Holly." He turned to Pollux and raised an eyebrow.
She nodded. "She's almost finished with her data dump. She'll need to select an Avatar but she can interact with us in here while it's growing; just like Athena and Anne are."
"If she doesn't already have an avatar, how can she get her real-world teaching areas in order?" Jimmy asked. "For that matter, I assume Athena has been working in the military area."
"They are 'riding' maintenance drones for the time being," Pollux explained.
"Okay, in addition to Athena and the Inquisitor AI going, I think Janie and Holly should go as well. We need more than just military people, and the two of you would be excellent recruiters," Jimmy said.