The Circle Read online

  “THE CIRCLE”

  A Science Fiction Novel

  By:

  Harold R. Watson

  DEDICATION: I have dedicated this novel to my wonderful wife, to our two lovely daughters, and to all of the science fiction lovers who decide to read and enjoy it.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Manufactured in The United States of America

  U.S.A. Copyright: TXu 1-023-453 (March 29, 2002)

  © Copyright 2003 Harold R. Watson. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

  Note for Librarians: a cataloguing record for this book that includes Dewey Classification and US Library of Congress numbers is available from the National Library of Canada. The complete cataloguing record can be obtained from the National Library’s online database at: www.nlc-bnc.ca/amicus/index-e.html

  ISBN 1-4120-1407-7

  ISBN 978-1-4122-1797-2 (eBook)

  This book was published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing.

  On-demand publishing is a unique process and service of making a book available for retail sale to the public taking advantage of on-demand manufacturing and Internet marketing. On-demand publishing includes promotions, retail sales, manufacturing, order fulfilment, accounting and collecting royalties on behalf of the author.

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  “THE CIRCLE”

  Table of Contents

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER 1-THE NEW TOY

  CHAPTER 2-COMPLETING THE PROJECT

  CHAPTER 3-EXODUS OF THE CHOSEN ONES

  CHAPTER 4-NUMBER FOUR H UNDRED

  CHAPTER 5-THE TOREN TWENTY

  CHAPTER 6-FAREWELL TO THE AMBER ONE

  CHAPTER 7-STARSIS

  CHAPTER 8-SNOW PEOPLE OF ERIE

  CHAPTER 9-GREETINGS FROM THE TOREN

  CHAPTER 10-THE SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSION

  CHAPTER 11-SHEGEKO’S COMPLAINT

  CHAPTER 12-A MAGICAL GIFT

  CHAPTER 13-EBONY’S HISTORY LESSON

  CHAPTER 14-THE JEWELS OF AQUARIUS

  CHAPTER 15-THE DOCTOR’S WIFE

  CHAPTER 16-MARIAN’S DOUBLE

  CHAPTER 17-DISCOVERY OF CAVE CITY

  CHAPTER 18-THE VOTE

  CHAPTER 19-BATTLE LINES FOR EARTH

  CHAPTER 20-DOOMSDAY MACHINE

  PREFACE:

  “THE CIRCLE”

  How many times in your lifetime have you heard someone use the term “Armageddon” and wonder what would happen if the prophesy of this holocaust came to pass in your lifetime? “The Circle” is a science fiction novel where I move us into the near future to tell of the exploits of the Neville family and fellow survivors of Armageddon after the holocaust occurs on Earth beginning in the year 2029.

  “The Circle” is the story of how approximately 160,000 Earthlings are removed from Earth just prior to the worst devastation of Armageddon by friends and benefactors from a federation of inhabited planets called the Toren Empire.

  “The Circle” also introduces the reader to an evil rival federation called the Atlantean Empire that has vowed to destroy all Earthlings and claim Planet Earth.

  The circle is symbolic of the journey from a devastated Earth to the Toren planets and back to a rejuvenated Earth some twenty years later to face their determined enemies. The circle can only be completed if the survivors return to the rejuvenated Earth at the appointed time and chase off the superior forces from Atlantis. The odds are stacked heavily in favor of the Atlanteans.

  Why would the survivors consider leaving the good life on a Toren planet called Starsis where they can remain and live the good life in safety? Why would they want to return to a planet that that had recently been so devastated by a nuclear holocaust? Why would they want to face an enemy against all odds so determined to destroy them?

  These questions and many more will be answered by the time you complete the final chapter.

  Whether you enjoy science fiction, delving into ancient prophesies, reading fantasy novels, reading passionate romance novels, or just like hero novels, I promise that you will enjoy the action, intrigue, suspense, and determination of the real to life characters depicted in “The Circle”.

  While I wrote “The Circle” for its entertainment value, I have to admit that the further I became involved into the plot, the more I became aware that events like those I’ve depicted in the novel could actually happen in our lifetime if the peace efforts, especially in the Middle East, continue to fail.

  Such terrorism as we have witnessed in the past could by comparison be only the tip of the iceberg of future events unless we can learn to get along better with our neighbors on this ever shrinking planet we call Earth.

  Harold R. Watson-The Author

  “THE CIRCLE”

  CHAPTER 1-THE NEW TOY

  I was awakened by the sound from the alarm clock as it broke the stillness of the winter morning. My wife then rolled over and nudged me with her elbow and reminded me of my promise to clear the snow from the driveway so we could get an early start back to our home in Northeast Ohio. As much as I hated to get out of bed and from under the warm covers, I knew that I must keep my promise if I ever hoped to talk her into coming with me to the cabin in the future.

  My wife’s name is Tara Sara after her mother Tara and her grandmother Sara. She uses her initials T. S. When our oldest daughter was small, she tried to say T. S. and it came out Tess. We laughed about it at the time but soon everyone was calling her Tess. The nickname stuck.

  Tess is strictly a city person. She enjoys all the modern devices and conveniences her billions will buy. I talked her into coming to our mountain retreat. I felt we needed some time for us just to get away from work, the kids, and the hectic pace of our big city lifestyle.

  My wife owns several firms located around the world. The corporate headquarters is situated in her seventy-five story office building in Cleveland, Ohio.

  We reside in the penthouse suite so she’ll be close to her headquarters. She possesses a memory like a computer and seems to be able to solve several problems at once. I don’t share many of her skills or her knowledge. I was a jet pilot in the Air Force when we met. She was trying to sell some new weapons system to the Air Force. I was chosen to work with her in the testing of the systems which her company installed into my airplane.

  We worked together several weeks during these tests. During those weeks, we fell in love and were soon married. I had no idea that she owned the company before we were married. I thought she was just an employee.

  I thought that I was goi
ng to talk her into quitting her job to follow me around the world in my Air Force career. What happened instead, was that I resigned my Air Force commission and went to work for her.

  Although I work for her corporation now, I really know very little about what goes on. It seems that everything she controls is labeled “TOP SECRET” and she almost never discusses her real work with me.

  I seldom see her during working hours except for those times when she asks me to stop by her office to pick up a package or something she wants me to deliver to one of her plant managers.

  For such deliveries, she bought me my own jet plane that has speeds similar to the one I had in the service. I never know the contents of any of the envelopes or packages that I deliver. Once I did see one of the pages briefly but it was all in some kind of code. I couldn’t read or understand it anyway.

  With all the wealth my wife has, it is no wonder that she doesn’t like spending much of her time here in the mountains in an old poorly furnished cabin. We certainly could afford a to purchase luxurious condo rather than keep this old cabin.

  I am invigorated by the great outdoors here in the same mountain cabin that I visited as a boy when my grandparents were alive.

  I still have many happy childhood memories of living in the mountains all summer and hunting and fishing with my grandfather. I also remember the smell of the pancakes my grandmother prepared for us and the taste of the apple pies she baked.

  When Tess does reluctantly agree to come with me for a week, I know that I will have to do many favors for her in return.

  By the time I managed to get the fire roaring again in the old wood burning stove, she was getting out of bed and telling me for the second time to go outside and clear the snow from the driveway so we could leave immediately after finishing breakfast.

  It had snowed another six to eight inches during the night. Snowdrifts would have made the long driveway nearly impassible with any vehicle other than a four wheel drive like we had.

  Our vehicle was equipped with a snowplow. It took me about ten minutes just to clear the ice and snow from the windows well enough to see through them. Soon afterwards, I was plowing heavy snow drifts off the driveway.

  Meanwhile she was busy inside preparing our breakfast. The freshly brewed coffee she made really hit the spot when I went back into the cabin. Before I could finish my first cup, she was putting breakfast on the table.

  We chatted about how fast the week had gone. Well, that is not completely true. I chatted about how fast the week had gone and she talked about how slowly the time had passed. I guess everything is in how you look at it. To me this was a great escape and a needed time for us to have together away from work and the kids for awhile.

  With all that was going on back in Cleveland with her work, we never seemed to have much time to just shut out the rest of the world and make quality time for us.

  Although my wife is thirty-eight, she still has the same beautiful figure she had at age twenty-five. For some reason, she never seems to age. On the other hand, I will be forty this year and I am beginning to show many signs of aging. My hair is thinning. I have developed a slight pot belly and I no longer seem to have the pep and vigor that I enjoyed just a few short years ago.

  While I was finishing breakfast, she was already busy packing and telling me to hurry up so we could get on the road. She had been looking forward to leaving Colorado ever since we arrived at the cabin and I was beginning to feel that that she was in no mood for any further delays on my part.

  After I finished, I quickly cleaned my plate and washed the remaining few dishes and put them away. She had already washed her own dishes and utensils as she ate.

  Soon we were packed and proceeding toward the motel in the valley where Jim, our caretaker, had been staying for the past week while we were using the cabin. Jim stays in the cabin the year around and moves into a motel when we want to use it.

  Jim knows the mountain area real well and he and I often go hunting or fishing together when I come to the cabin alone. On those occasions, I stay at the cabin with him.

  Jim seemed glad to see us as he piled his belongings in the back of the 4 x 4. He rode with us to the private private airport where our jet was serviced and kept in a hangar out of the bad weather.

  After dropping us off, Jim drove the vehicle back to the cabin while an attendant started to carry our luggage into the hangar for the flight home. The hangar door was slightly open so I could see inside. Our plane was not in the hangar where we had left it.

  “Where’s our plane?” I asked the attendant. Before he could answer, my wife said it had already been flown back to Cleveland.

  “Then how are we going to get home?” I asked.

  She more or less ignored my question while she directed the attendant to put our bags into a company helicopter that was setting on the tarmac.

  As she started toward it, she turned and motioned to me impatiently telling me to join her.

  I didn’t look forward to riding in a helicopter for more than two thousand miles or so back to Cleveland. Once everything was loaded, she piloted the helicopter back toward the mountains. I was becoming annoyed because I knew that wasn’t the way home.

  About ten minutes later, she set it down inside a fenced in snow covered meadow on a cleaned helicopter pad near what appeared to be an old dilapidated farm house. Except for the pad from which someone had cleaned off the snow, the place looked deserted. As I looked around, I noticed a dim light shining from a window as the curtains were pulled back by someone inside.

  After we left the helicopter, we waded toward the farmhouse through heavy snow. I asked her why we had come to this desolate looking place. She asked me to just wait and see.

  Shortly after we reached the porch of the old house, I turned to look back toward the helicopter. It was no longer there. Now I was puzzled. Where could it be? We had left it only a short time ago. I didn’t hear anyone start it up let alone hearing it take off. Besides, who could have flown it away. We were the only two in it when we arrived.

  Maybe I had gotten my directions mixed up, I thought. I walked around the side of the porch and looked in another direction. There was still no helicopter.

  My wife followed me part way around the corner of the porch and summoned me to come on. She demonstrated her impatience by waiving her hand for emphasis, so I would follow her. Where were our bags? I realized that we had left them in the helicopter. I wondered if someone had flown off with our bags.

  I should have learned by now that strange things like this were the norm around my wife and her friends. Coming to this old farmhouse in the middle of winter and the disappearing helicopter were just two more strange things I shouldn’t spend too much time trying to understand.

  I followed her inside the dilapidated old farmhouse. On the inside, it was much like you would expect and old farmhouse to be. It was furnished with old and nearly worn out inexpensive looking furniture like one might see in a poor sharecropper’s place.

  An elderly looking couple greeted us at the front door and the woman hugged my wife like Tess was a long lost relative. My wife addressed them by their first names as if they were the best of friends.

  She told them that I was her husband Damon. I wondered why I have never heard about these people before today if they were such good friends of my wife.

  Later I learned that the old farmhouse occupied by these two elderly people was a front for another one of her hidden factories. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the elderly couple, my wife went off into another room to talk privately with the old woman. When she returned, Tess grabbed me by the arm and told me to follow her down into the basement.

  Once we passed the stairway entrance, she told me to close the door behind us. After walking down the rickety old steps, we crossed the old cracked concrete floor until we reached a rust stained c
oncrete block shower stall that appeared to be too dilapidated for anyone to use anymore.

  She stepped into the shower stall and asked me to join her. She then yanked on one of the water turn on knobs and pulled it out about three or four inches. When extended like this, the knob became a switching device that caused a hidden door in the sidewall to open. There was a bright light on the other side of the door that illuminated the dimly lit basement. There was an enclosed stairway with a top landing and twelve concrete steps leading down into tunnel. Once we were standing on the landing, she pushed the knob back into its original position causing the door to close. We walked down the steps and into the tunnel entrance. It appeared to come to a dead end some 100 feet or so ahead.

  When we reached the end, there was a pushbutton device attached to the wall. I then noticed two large closed steel doors around a corner to our left.

  She pushed some buttons and we made a ninety-degree turn into another much bigger tunnel. After entering the larger tunnel, I saw the helicopter sitting on a platform within a hangar located off to one side of this access way. Then we got onto a golf cart which had our luggage already on it.

  I wondered why we had not just stayed in the helicopter until it was in the underground hangar. When I asked my wife, she said that she wanted to see the couple in the farm house to say hello before coming into the tunnel. She said that she had given the old woman some cash.

  We drove down this long tunnel way and as we did, I noticed several other helicopters and a dozen or so corporate jet planes stored in box shaped underground hangars. There were also several military fighter jets that appeared fully armed and ready for combat.

  She drove the little cart for five minutes or so through more tunnels before we arrived at a much larger area where she pointed to an aircraft like none I had ever seen.