Free Divine Deception: The Will Traveller Chronicals by Robert James Page A

destiny” Zoran
mused to no-one in particular.
    “You knew all
along?” Susan asked, surprised. Zoran nodded
    “First saw the old
woman when I was a teenager” He chuckled.
    “Do you think we
should start in Centropolis?” Zoran asked her. I was surprised that
he asked her, changes were already afoot.
    “Well, I know my
way around there that’s true” Susan agreed “But isn’t it a bit too
close to the Supreme House?” She asked us both.
    “I want to know
about the other States before I decide that Susan” I answered her
“It’s more a case of which one will be the easiest to be the most
effective in” I explained to the three of them. I knew that Susan
Proust was an excellent companion, for travelling with or
otherwise, now she showed why she had become a member of my
team.
    As an ever-rising
executive in the Centropolis administration, first in production,
later in planning and, as she was when I met her, in the Governor’s
Office of Strategic Planning, where she was already second in
charge, which was quite some achievement I guessed, Susan had had
frequent contact with other State Administrations. While she only
knew what she’d been told, she was able to provide me with a very
clear picture of the New World. However, she was genuinely taken
aback to hear, from Zoran, that the New Worlders, as she knew them,
made up but a tenth, if that, of the human population of this
planet.
    “But where are
they all?” Susan quizzed the old man.
    “Ma’m” The pilot
answered for him “I’ve seen ‘em, lots of times, on hunts and
harvest runs” He told us. We all looked at him waiting for him to
go on.
    “I never thought
of them being like us Lord Robert” He told me “We thought they were
just like animals” He added. It seems my Brothers and I would
frequently travel, for many hours, at high speed, just to hunt a
particular type of beast for the Supreme House table and, along the
way, we would make sport of running down the locals and engaging in
utterly one-sided skirmishes. One of the goals being who could kill
the most, in the least time! Susan added that on some half dozen
occasions, the Centropolis T.T.V’s had been damaged, while out on
their fuel harvesting excursions, supposedly from wild beasts.
Though oddly, none were ever killed or captured.
    “There is at least
six tribes of the wild people within your State T.T.V’s range
Ma’am” The pilot told an astonished Susan “Some of ‘em are pretty
tough too” He added.
    “You had no
defences against them?” I asked Susan.
    “Well, all of
those issues, defence, policing, correctional treatment” Susan
listed them on her fingers “They are all under the Governor’s guard
authority” She explained “And the production department is separate
from us too, though the Guard have a big say with them, I know
that” She added confidentially. It was easy to see why no one other
than the Supreme One and his confidants knew the complete
picture.
    After considering
what Susan told me about the other twelve States which made up this
New World, I decided that one of the smallest of them, Carabindy
Province, the most recent to achieve independent statehood, would
be ideal for our purposes. But it was almost literally on the other
side of the planet! In fact it was about the furthermost away. I
announced my choice to considerable surprise, assuring my
colleagues that I’d explain as we travelled. Just after noon we
said our goodbyes and smoothly moved away across the open fields
around Willow Vale. From the air it was easy to see why the place
had been so absolutely secure, from everything but the Supreme
House’s own forces! Without the ability to fly, no-one would even
know it was there. Steep cliffs, all around the base of Willow
Vale’s volcanic mountain, ensured that no man or beast could enter
any other way.
    As we were able to
fly at an altitude of just on a thousand metres, at a top speed of
six hundred kilometres an hour, our T.T.V was