The Four Faces of Rath
The Mysteries Of Jeffy
Chapter 50
L
“He’s beautiful, Mom!” Maya said, as she gazed at the face of her new little baby brother. “But I still don’t understand where you found him.”
Liz smiled, and Max grinned and shook his head.
“We didn’t ‘find’ him,” Max said. “Well, we did… but that was only after… well, I mean… we lost him first. Okay, that’s not exactly what I meant to say, either. It’s not like we just misplaced him… it’s more like… Feel free to jump in anytime and help me out here, Liz.”
“You’re doing such a great job, Hon. I wouldn’t want to stop you when you’re on a roll.”
“I’ll forgive you, Liz. Have a little mercy here… Please?”
“Well, it’s like this, Maya, your Dad and I had Jeffy in another timeline… only it wasn’t a timeline, it was more of a displaced time bubble with no past. Then this timeline here got fixed, and that bubble ceased to exist, and Jeffy ceased to exist…”
“Dad, what’s Mom talking about,” Andya asked.
Max smiled. “Oh, she’s explaining it right, Andya.”
“Well, it’s making about as much sense as you were.”
Max pursed his lips tightly together and reached out pretending to whack Andya on the back of the head. Andya giggled and jumped out of the way.
“Well, it’s true, Dad. I mean, you guys just suddenly show up with a baby, and you say he’s yours, but Mom wasn’t pregnant, and nobody told us anything about him coming. Now you’re talking about some timeline that wasn’t a timeline. And you say Jeffy was born in a bubble…”
“Yeah… sort of,” Max said. “But not a little bubble that was just around him… a big bubble. A sort of time… anomaly. He was born here in the palace, but not in this time that we’re in right now.”
“I think I understand,” JoLeesa said, “but when were you in that other time… bubble… thing? And how did Jeffy get born?”
“Really, Leese!” Alyyx exclaimed. “Even I know how babies get born.”
JoLeesa looked at Alyyx.
“Okay,” Alyyx said, throwing up his hands. “I admit, this one maybe isn’t like what Dad explained to me when he told me about babies.”
“Well, it did happen the normal way, Alyyx,” Max said. “It took nine months for him to be born. We just weren’t here… your mom and me.”
“If you were gone, Dad… and Mom was gone… where were we?” JoLeesa asked.
“I really don’t know the answer to that, JoLeesa,” Liz said. “It’s a very good question.”
“Maybe you lost us,” Alyyx said.
JoLeesa huffed and looked at Alyyx again. “She didn’t lose us, Alyyx, you dummy! But if she had lost you, it might have been okay.”
“Oh yeah? Well, if she lost you, Leese, she’d still have two others just like you. I’m the only one like me.”
“Not any more,” JoLeesa said.
“You wouldn’t lose me, would you, Mom?”
“Of course not, Alyyx. And we wouldn’t lose your sister either… any of them. We need all of you! You’re all our children, and you’re all special!”
“See, Leese!” Alyyx said. “I’m special.”
“So are grelliats,” JoLeesa said, “but they’re vegetables.”
“Mom!”
“Oh, Alyyx, your sister’s just teasing you. Leesa, leave your brother alone. He’s not a vegetable.”
“I know. Vegetables are wholesome and good for you,” JoLeesa said.
She noticed Max giving her a stern look.
“Okay, Alyyx, you’re not a vegetable.”
“Mom, I don’t think I like what she meant by that.”
“Alyyx!” Liz threatened. “I thought you guys wanted to see the baby!”
“We do, Mom,” Andya said. “Can I hold him?”
Liz looked at Jeffy. “Sure. Hold out your arms.” She placed Jeffy carefully into Andya’s arms, and Andya smiled as she held him next to her and wrapped the blanket back over his feet.
“He’s such a little angel, Mom.”
Liz smiled.
Andya’s eyes suddenly lit up, as an idea came into her head.
“What would you like to play with, little one,” Andya whispered quietly to him. “A bunny? No, that’s maybe not the best thing.” Andya remembered her last experience with a rabbit. “An Earth puppy?” she said, almost to herself. “No… too frisky, a kitten, too. I know!” Andya waved her little finger under the blanket, and something appeared on top of the blanket between Jeffy’s hands. Liz and Max both noticed it immediately, and both knew who was responsible.
“What is that, Andya,” Liz asked.
Andya just smiled, and Liz moved closer to look at it, as Jeffy picked it up in his hands. It was fuzzy. It wriggled and made a quiet mewing sound, but it didn’t look like something that would normally be alive. Jeffy seemed delighted by it, if the look on his face was any indication.
“What is that,” Max asked, repeating Liz’s question.
“What does it look like,” Andya asked evasively, delaying the inevitable answer.
“A toupée that came to life and escaped off of some bald guy’s head,” Max said… “or maybe a Pekingese that had a tragic encounter with a tank.”
“D’oh, really!” Liz exclaimed, swatting Max playfully on the arm. Turning to Andya, Liz said, “Look, Andya, you’re going to have to tell us, you know. You might as well do it right now.” The look in her mother’s eyes told Andya that Liz wasn’t going to accept another evasive answer.
Andya looked at the fuzzy little creature in Jeffy’s hands.
“Well, Mom, a baby pawgor would be too big, and a puppy would be too frisky, and a rabbit would run away, so I… so I… made him a tribble.”
“A what,” Liz asked, wondering if she had heard right.
“I saw them on cable… from Earth.”
“Tribbles?”
“Yeah! They’re cute… and fuzzy… and they don’t bite or scratch or run away! It’s perfect, Mom!”
Liz looked at Max, a totally bemused expression on her face. No words came to her, which was a bit unusual.
“Honey,” Max said to Andya, “I think you should get rid of it.”
“But why, Dad? Didn’t you ever have a tribble when you were little?”
“They weren’t real, Andya… like this one. And I do remember them. I also remember what the trouble with tribbles was.”
“Aw, Dad…” Andya looked at Liz, and Liz nodded, though Andya thought her mom appeared to be relenting.
Andya sighed and waved her little finger under the blanket again, and the tribble disappeared.
“Thank you,” Max said.
“Can I hold Jeffy, too, Mom,” Maya asked.
“I guess so,” Liz said. “Andya, do you mind?”
Andya handed Jeffy over to Maya, as Liz watched.
“Hi, Jeffy!” Maya said, looking at him and smiling. “You’re so sweet! Where were you hiding all this time? I’m glad Mom and Dad found you wherever you were.”
JoLeesa leaned over Maya’s arms and kissed Jeffy on the cheek. “We’re going to have a lot of fun, Jeffy. I’m really glad to have another little brother.”
“Yeah, sure you are,” Alyyx said drily.
“Well, I am,” JoLeesa said. “The old one was defective.”
“Mom!”
“You started it, Alyyx,” Liz said. “Both of you knock it off!”
Liz looked at Jeffy then turned back to Andya with a look that said she was not amused.
“Andya, your Dad told you to get rid of the tribble! I did, too! I’ve never known you to disobey a direct order before.”
“I didn’t, Mom! Really! I made it go away.”
“But you brought it back.”
“No I didn’t, Mom!”
“Well, what’s that then?”
Andya looked. Jeffy was holding the tribble in his hands, staring at it with a smile on his face.
“Mom, I didn’t! I swear it! Maybe the molecules didn’t all go away.”
“Alright, just get rid of it.”
Andya passed her hand over the tribble, and it disappeared. But almost as soon as she had done it, a small swirl of atoms brought it back to Jeffy’s hands again. Liz sat down on a chair with a stunned look on her face. “Max?”
“I saw it, Liz.”
Max looked at the little ball of fluff in Jeffy’s hands and shrugged. “Maybe we can get it ‘fixed.’”
tbc
-------------------------------------------
Author’s Note: For non-trekkies who may never have heard of a tribble, in the original series of Star Trek, there was an episode called, “The Trouble With Tribbles.” Someone brought one onboard, and everyone loved the cute, cuddly little thing. The trouble was, in a couple of days, no one could walk, sit down, or even open a door without thousands of tribbles tumbling out all over them. In a later episode of a later series someone almost started a war with the Klingons by selling a tribble on a Klingon planet.
------------------------------------------
The Four Faces of Rath (CC/AU,ALL,TEEN)
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Forum Moderators
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
Last edited by Island Breeze on Sun Sep 07, 2003 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Relatively Speaking
Chapter 51
LI
After returning from dinner, Liz put Jeffy in his crib and let Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx go over to Kyle and Jeliya’s house to play with Rayyn and Taz. Jeliya promised to bring them back when she returned to pick Kyle up at the end of his shift at the palace. With the palace temporarily free of children, Max sat down in his oversized Antarian easy chair and leaned back to relax. Liz sat down across his lap and leaned her forehead against his, smiling playfully. Max smiled back.
“How about a little kiss, Max… I need something to go on here.”
Max pressed his lips to Liz’s, and Liz put one arm around Max’s neck and ran her fingers up into his hair. Max pulled her tighter against him, enjoying the sensuous feel and taste of her soft, welcoming lips. He ran his right hand under the back of her blouse. A touch… and a clasp came loose. It was one of the advantages of having certain… powers. Max gently ran the tips of his fingers back down along the center of her back all the way to the tip of her spine then slowly brought his hand around toward the front. Liz smiled and parted her lips further, deepening her kiss as she allowed herself to be lost in the passions of the moment. Suddenly, she exhaled with an audible though almost whispered gasp or sigh.
“Omigod, Max, what was that?”
“Do you like it?” Max smiled. “It’s just a mild electric pulse… from my hand.”
Liz didn’t answer. Instead, she turned around to face Max. Straddling his lap, she took his face in both hands and pressed her lips to his waiting mouth again. Though fully dressed, Max felt every contour of Liz’s body pressing against him in all the right places. It felt good. He could feel a rising pressure, as Liz pressed harder against him… or maybe that was him.
Liz felt it, too.
“You want to go up to our room for a while, Max?”
Max looked into Liz’s eyes, and a grin inched over his face. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
Liz put both of her arms around Max’s neck, and he stood up with her in his arms. Then a voice interrupted from the parlor entrance.
“Ahem.”
Max turned around to see where the offending noise had come from.
“Sorry, Max, but you have visitors,” Kyle said. “Michael and Maria.”
“Oh! Uh… Okay, well… send them in, Kyle. Just give me a moment to… comb my hair… or something,” Max said, setting Liz down on her feet and trying clumsily to stand up straight and not look too totally obvious.
Kyle nodded solemnly then turned and walked out of the room. As he walked toward the front entrance, his solemn look was replaced by a grin.
“We really need to put a bell on him,” Max said.
Liz giggled.
Max finished tucking his shirt tails back in, and Liz straightened her blouse, then Max nodded to Kyle, who was with Michael and Maria in the foyer. Kyle showed them into the parlor. Michael and Maria didn’t really need an escort. They were thoroughly familiar with the palace. Besides, Michael still had his own private room there. He rarely stayed there anymore, but now and then, he and Maria… and sometimes their children, too… would stay over.
“Michael! Maria!” Max said, smiling.
Liz smiled at Michael and hugged Maria.
“What brings you guys out tonight,” Max asked.
Michael smiled and looked back and forth between Max and Liz. “I… uh… we’re not interrupting something, are we? Cause if we are, we can come back later… or tomorrow…”
“No! No! No… You’re not interrupting anything, Michael,” Liz said.
“Not now, you’re not,” Max said under his breath. Then he smiled. “No. You’re not interrupting anything, Michael.”
“Alright, ‘cause if I was, I could always come back later, you know.”
“No, no. I was just helping Liz get something out of her eye.”
“Oh! Well, go ahead, Max! I’ll wait.”
“Uh… No. That’s all right. I think I got it.”
Liz winked at Maria, and Maria smiled and winked back. Michael noticed.
“You got something in your eye, too, Maria?”
Maria smiled coyly. “I think so. Maybe you should take a look at it… up close.”
Michael looked at Maria for a moment then turned his head to the side and smiled. Then he turned his eyes back toward Maria and grinned, as he shook his head.
“Can it wait till we get home?”
“I think so.”
“Good. ‘Cause I got the right… uh… tools there.”
“Sit down,” Liz said, motioning to the sofa. “I’ll get you something to drink. Coffee? Snapples? Cherry Coke? Jubish? Whatever you want.”
“Yeah… okay… uh, a little cherry Coke with a dash of jubish and a couple o’ teaspoons of Tabasco would be very nice,” Michael said.
Liz looked at Max. “Yeah… I’ll go for that,” Max said. “Sounds good.”
Maria nodded. “Same here… minus the T-sauce.”
“Gotcha,” Liz said as she headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll help you, Liz.” Maria hopped up and headed toward the kitchen, too.
“Kryys told us you got Jeffy back.”
Liz nodded. “Thanks to Kryys. That wonderful son of yours is a miracle worker, Maria. The Nogi-Ky’a could learn from him. A billion years of evolution and experience, and they’ve got nothing on Kryys.”
Maria grinned and nodded. “I want to see Jeffy, Liz. Can I? Is he asleep?”
“I think so, but you can see him. Help me take these drinks out to the coffee table, then we’ll go up and get him.”
Liz and Maria returned and set the drinks on the table then went together up to Jeffy’s room. He was sleeping with a smile on his face.
Maria gasped. “He’s beautiful, Liz! Omigod! What a little angel!”
“Yeah,” Liz said, smiling, “but I think he’s going to be a handful. I’ve just got a feeling.”
“Well, if you need any help, Liz, you know Auntie Maria is always here,” Maria said with a grin.
“Thanks, Maria. I’ll keep that in mind. You can count on it.”
Liz picked Jeffy up and put him in Maria’s arms.
“Awwwww,” Maria cooed softly. “He’s so sweet. Look at that smile!”
“Yeah. I wonder what he’s dreaming about,” Liz said.
“Maybe he’s happy to finally be home,” Maria replied simply.
Liz looked at Maria, and her eyes misted up. “Yeah, that could be it, Maria.”
“Come on, Liz. I want to show him to Michael. Can we take him down…?”
“Sure. Come on.”
Maria and Liz walked back down the grand staircase to the parlor with Jeffy in Maria’s arms. Maria smiled and held Jeffy out slightly for Michael to see.
“He’s adorable,” Michael said simply. “You must be very happy.”
Liz smiled and wiped away a tear that was forming in the corner of her eye. “We are. Believe me.”
“Looks like he’s happy, too,” Michael said.
Liz nodded and looked at Maria.
“He’s happy to finally be home with his mommy and daddy again,” Maria said. “I can read baby smiles.”
Max, Michael, and Liz laughed, and Liz nodded her agreement.
“Jayyd and Zorel wanted to see him, too,” Maria said… “especially Jayyd, but it was getting a little late, and we weren’t sure when we would be back, so Amy’s watching them and Liz-Jolee at our house. They’re going to stay over and go yorith riding in the morning with Varec.”
“Sounds like fun,” Max said.
Max looked at Michael, and Michael gave Max a puzzled look.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Just my imagination.”
“Since you brought up imaginations, have you had any more dreams lately, Michael?”
Michael shook his head, as he took another sip of his drink. “Nothing worth mentioning. I’m satisfied with who I am now, Max. I know who I am. I don’t hate Rath anymore, and I’m not scared of being him. I understand him. Everything’s cool.”
“How about the flying dreams?”
Michael looked slightly uneasy. “Well, I had that dream again a few days ago… but it’s not bad, so there’s nothing to worry about, right?”
“Right.”
“Max?” Michael looked at Max again with the same puzzled look as before. “Are you having a rodent problem in the palace?”
“No! What would make you think that?”
“Well, I thought I saw a reddish brown rat or something peek out from behind the door over there. Then I thought it must have been my imagination. But I just saw it again. Something’s running around in here.”
Maria picked her feet up and crossed them on the sofa, as she looked to see what Michael was talking about, but she saw nothing.
“I think you saw Harold,” Liz said.
Maria and Michael both looked at Liz questioningly.
“Yeah, well, it’s… that is, he’s… well, we’re not sure it’s a he, really,” Liz said. “It may be a Harriet.”
“Say what?” Michael said, looking totally confused.
“Harold,” Liz called softly. “Come here. I’ll give you a cookie.”
A small, hairy object the color of burnt sienna moved cautiously out from behind the door and made its way toward Liz.
Maria pulled her legs further up under herself on the sofa. “What is that, Liz?”
“You want to take any guesses, Michael,” Max asked with a grin.
Michael shook his head. “Something Danny’s pawgor ate that didn’t get digested, I’d say. It looks like a pawgor fur ball. And I think it’s alive.”
Maria slapped Michael on the arm playfully. “Really, Michael!”
“Well, it does.”
“Ever hear of a tribble?” Max asked.
Michael looked at Max and slowly grinned a lopsided sort of grin. He knew that Max might be pulling a practical joke on him. Pulling practical jokes on Michael was more up Kyle’s alley. Still, he wouldn’t rule it out in Max’s case. Sometimes Max would pull something off out of the blue. It was usually successful, because it was so unpredictable and because Max was capable of keeping such a poker face.
“I’m not falling, Max. Next, you’ll have some guy with pointy ears walk in here and say he’s Spock.”
Max laughed and picked the furry little creature up.
“It’s a tribble, Michael. Really! Want to hold it?”
Michael put out his hand, and Max handed him the little tribble.
“Okay, Max, this may sound crazy but… Where’d you get a tribble? Huh? Oh, wait a minute! I know! You had that little guy, uh… Frebel-Ish make it for you.”
Max shook his head. “Nope. Andya made this one. You know she can conjure up animals.”
“Yeah, I heard that. But why a tribble?”
“She gave it to Jeffy.”
Michael was silent for a few moments.
“Does it bite?”
“No. It doesn’t bite, scratch, run away, grow too big, or eat too much. It just has one flaw.”
“I know,” Michael nodded. I used to watch Star Trek reruns. “Did you take care of that little problem?”
“Not yet… but I guess we’ll have to do something. We don’t know for sure if it’s a male or a female. For now, it’s Harold either way. ‘Hair’-old, get it?”
Michael nodded.
“Jeffy won’t let us get rid of it. We tried, but he brought it back.”
“Jeffy?” Maria repeated questioningly.
“Yeah. Didn’t Kryys tell you about Jeffy?”
“He told us that Jeffy has the same power that he has to change into atoms at will. But he doesn’t think Jeffy understands that he can do it. Kryys said that Jeffy was able to come back, because he had a strong desire to be with you.”
Max nodded. “Well, Jeffy knows how to turn a tribble into atoms and bring it back.”
Michael raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, wow!” Maria said softly. “Kryys didn’t know about his power until he was six. I’m kind of glad. Now I see why you said you may have your hands full.”
“You still want to help take care of him, Auntie Maria,” Liz asked with a laugh.
Maria smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sure! What’s another little wizard or two in the family, ‘relatively’ speaking?”
tbc
Relatively Speaking
Chapter 51
LI
After returning from dinner, Liz put Jeffy in his crib and let Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx go over to Kyle and Jeliya’s house to play with Rayyn and Taz. Jeliya promised to bring them back when she returned to pick Kyle up at the end of his shift at the palace. With the palace temporarily free of children, Max sat down in his oversized Antarian easy chair and leaned back to relax. Liz sat down across his lap and leaned her forehead against his, smiling playfully. Max smiled back.
“How about a little kiss, Max… I need something to go on here.”
Max pressed his lips to Liz’s, and Liz put one arm around Max’s neck and ran her fingers up into his hair. Max pulled her tighter against him, enjoying the sensuous feel and taste of her soft, welcoming lips. He ran his right hand under the back of her blouse. A touch… and a clasp came loose. It was one of the advantages of having certain… powers. Max gently ran the tips of his fingers back down along the center of her back all the way to the tip of her spine then slowly brought his hand around toward the front. Liz smiled and parted her lips further, deepening her kiss as she allowed herself to be lost in the passions of the moment. Suddenly, she exhaled with an audible though almost whispered gasp or sigh.
“Omigod, Max, what was that?”
“Do you like it?” Max smiled. “It’s just a mild electric pulse… from my hand.”
Liz didn’t answer. Instead, she turned around to face Max. Straddling his lap, she took his face in both hands and pressed her lips to his waiting mouth again. Though fully dressed, Max felt every contour of Liz’s body pressing against him in all the right places. It felt good. He could feel a rising pressure, as Liz pressed harder against him… or maybe that was him.
Liz felt it, too.
“You want to go up to our room for a while, Max?”
Max looked into Liz’s eyes, and a grin inched over his face. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
Liz put both of her arms around Max’s neck, and he stood up with her in his arms. Then a voice interrupted from the parlor entrance.
“Ahem.”
Max turned around to see where the offending noise had come from.
“Sorry, Max, but you have visitors,” Kyle said. “Michael and Maria.”
“Oh! Uh… Okay, well… send them in, Kyle. Just give me a moment to… comb my hair… or something,” Max said, setting Liz down on her feet and trying clumsily to stand up straight and not look too totally obvious.
Kyle nodded solemnly then turned and walked out of the room. As he walked toward the front entrance, his solemn look was replaced by a grin.
“We really need to put a bell on him,” Max said.
Liz giggled.
Max finished tucking his shirt tails back in, and Liz straightened her blouse, then Max nodded to Kyle, who was with Michael and Maria in the foyer. Kyle showed them into the parlor. Michael and Maria didn’t really need an escort. They were thoroughly familiar with the palace. Besides, Michael still had his own private room there. He rarely stayed there anymore, but now and then, he and Maria… and sometimes their children, too… would stay over.
“Michael! Maria!” Max said, smiling.
Liz smiled at Michael and hugged Maria.
“What brings you guys out tonight,” Max asked.
Michael smiled and looked back and forth between Max and Liz. “I… uh… we’re not interrupting something, are we? Cause if we are, we can come back later… or tomorrow…”
“No! No! No… You’re not interrupting anything, Michael,” Liz said.
“Not now, you’re not,” Max said under his breath. Then he smiled. “No. You’re not interrupting anything, Michael.”
“Alright, ‘cause if I was, I could always come back later, you know.”
“No, no. I was just helping Liz get something out of her eye.”
“Oh! Well, go ahead, Max! I’ll wait.”
“Uh… No. That’s all right. I think I got it.”
Liz winked at Maria, and Maria smiled and winked back. Michael noticed.
“You got something in your eye, too, Maria?”
Maria smiled coyly. “I think so. Maybe you should take a look at it… up close.”
Michael looked at Maria for a moment then turned his head to the side and smiled. Then he turned his eyes back toward Maria and grinned, as he shook his head.
“Can it wait till we get home?”
“I think so.”
“Good. ‘Cause I got the right… uh… tools there.”
“Sit down,” Liz said, motioning to the sofa. “I’ll get you something to drink. Coffee? Snapples? Cherry Coke? Jubish? Whatever you want.”
“Yeah… okay… uh, a little cherry Coke with a dash of jubish and a couple o’ teaspoons of Tabasco would be very nice,” Michael said.
Liz looked at Max. “Yeah… I’ll go for that,” Max said. “Sounds good.”
Maria nodded. “Same here… minus the T-sauce.”
“Gotcha,” Liz said as she headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll help you, Liz.” Maria hopped up and headed toward the kitchen, too.
“Kryys told us you got Jeffy back.”
Liz nodded. “Thanks to Kryys. That wonderful son of yours is a miracle worker, Maria. The Nogi-Ky’a could learn from him. A billion years of evolution and experience, and they’ve got nothing on Kryys.”
Maria grinned and nodded. “I want to see Jeffy, Liz. Can I? Is he asleep?”
“I think so, but you can see him. Help me take these drinks out to the coffee table, then we’ll go up and get him.”
Liz and Maria returned and set the drinks on the table then went together up to Jeffy’s room. He was sleeping with a smile on his face.
Maria gasped. “He’s beautiful, Liz! Omigod! What a little angel!”
“Yeah,” Liz said, smiling, “but I think he’s going to be a handful. I’ve just got a feeling.”
“Well, if you need any help, Liz, you know Auntie Maria is always here,” Maria said with a grin.
“Thanks, Maria. I’ll keep that in mind. You can count on it.”
Liz picked Jeffy up and put him in Maria’s arms.
“Awwwww,” Maria cooed softly. “He’s so sweet. Look at that smile!”
“Yeah. I wonder what he’s dreaming about,” Liz said.
“Maybe he’s happy to finally be home,” Maria replied simply.
Liz looked at Maria, and her eyes misted up. “Yeah, that could be it, Maria.”
“Come on, Liz. I want to show him to Michael. Can we take him down…?”
“Sure. Come on.”
Maria and Liz walked back down the grand staircase to the parlor with Jeffy in Maria’s arms. Maria smiled and held Jeffy out slightly for Michael to see.
“He’s adorable,” Michael said simply. “You must be very happy.”
Liz smiled and wiped away a tear that was forming in the corner of her eye. “We are. Believe me.”
“Looks like he’s happy, too,” Michael said.
Liz nodded and looked at Maria.
“He’s happy to finally be home with his mommy and daddy again,” Maria said. “I can read baby smiles.”
Max, Michael, and Liz laughed, and Liz nodded her agreement.
“Jayyd and Zorel wanted to see him, too,” Maria said… “especially Jayyd, but it was getting a little late, and we weren’t sure when we would be back, so Amy’s watching them and Liz-Jolee at our house. They’re going to stay over and go yorith riding in the morning with Varec.”
“Sounds like fun,” Max said.
Max looked at Michael, and Michael gave Max a puzzled look.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Just my imagination.”
“Since you brought up imaginations, have you had any more dreams lately, Michael?”
Michael shook his head, as he took another sip of his drink. “Nothing worth mentioning. I’m satisfied with who I am now, Max. I know who I am. I don’t hate Rath anymore, and I’m not scared of being him. I understand him. Everything’s cool.”
“How about the flying dreams?”
Michael looked slightly uneasy. “Well, I had that dream again a few days ago… but it’s not bad, so there’s nothing to worry about, right?”
“Right.”
“Max?” Michael looked at Max again with the same puzzled look as before. “Are you having a rodent problem in the palace?”
“No! What would make you think that?”
“Well, I thought I saw a reddish brown rat or something peek out from behind the door over there. Then I thought it must have been my imagination. But I just saw it again. Something’s running around in here.”
Maria picked her feet up and crossed them on the sofa, as she looked to see what Michael was talking about, but she saw nothing.
“I think you saw Harold,” Liz said.
Maria and Michael both looked at Liz questioningly.
“Yeah, well, it’s… that is, he’s… well, we’re not sure it’s a he, really,” Liz said. “It may be a Harriet.”
“Say what?” Michael said, looking totally confused.
“Harold,” Liz called softly. “Come here. I’ll give you a cookie.”
A small, hairy object the color of burnt sienna moved cautiously out from behind the door and made its way toward Liz.
Maria pulled her legs further up under herself on the sofa. “What is that, Liz?”
“You want to take any guesses, Michael,” Max asked with a grin.
Michael shook his head. “Something Danny’s pawgor ate that didn’t get digested, I’d say. It looks like a pawgor fur ball. And I think it’s alive.”
Maria slapped Michael on the arm playfully. “Really, Michael!”
“Well, it does.”
“Ever hear of a tribble?” Max asked.
Michael looked at Max and slowly grinned a lopsided sort of grin. He knew that Max might be pulling a practical joke on him. Pulling practical jokes on Michael was more up Kyle’s alley. Still, he wouldn’t rule it out in Max’s case. Sometimes Max would pull something off out of the blue. It was usually successful, because it was so unpredictable and because Max was capable of keeping such a poker face.
“I’m not falling, Max. Next, you’ll have some guy with pointy ears walk in here and say he’s Spock.”
Max laughed and picked the furry little creature up.
“It’s a tribble, Michael. Really! Want to hold it?”
Michael put out his hand, and Max handed him the little tribble.
“Okay, Max, this may sound crazy but… Where’d you get a tribble? Huh? Oh, wait a minute! I know! You had that little guy, uh… Frebel-Ish make it for you.”
Max shook his head. “Nope. Andya made this one. You know she can conjure up animals.”
“Yeah, I heard that. But why a tribble?”
“She gave it to Jeffy.”
Michael was silent for a few moments.
“Does it bite?”
“No. It doesn’t bite, scratch, run away, grow too big, or eat too much. It just has one flaw.”
“I know,” Michael nodded. I used to watch Star Trek reruns. “Did you take care of that little problem?”
“Not yet… but I guess we’ll have to do something. We don’t know for sure if it’s a male or a female. For now, it’s Harold either way. ‘Hair’-old, get it?”
Michael nodded.
“Jeffy won’t let us get rid of it. We tried, but he brought it back.”
“Jeffy?” Maria repeated questioningly.
“Yeah. Didn’t Kryys tell you about Jeffy?”
“He told us that Jeffy has the same power that he has to change into atoms at will. But he doesn’t think Jeffy understands that he can do it. Kryys said that Jeffy was able to come back, because he had a strong desire to be with you.”
Max nodded. “Well, Jeffy knows how to turn a tribble into atoms and bring it back.”
Michael raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, wow!” Maria said softly. “Kryys didn’t know about his power until he was six. I’m kind of glad. Now I see why you said you may have your hands full.”
“You still want to help take care of him, Auntie Maria,” Liz asked with a laugh.
Maria smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sure! What’s another little wizard or two in the family, ‘relatively’ speaking?”
tbc
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
SeXXX 101
Chapter 52
LII
Varec turned the fluffy little creature upside down and pushed the fluff aside with his fingers, then, thinking that maybe he had had it right to begin with, he turned it back over and checked the other side. Then he turned it around and checked the other end.
“I’m sorry, Zan. I can’t tell you if it’s a male or a female. The scans didn’t show anything, either. I guess I could dissect it.”
“No!” both Max and Liz said at the same time.
“No,” Max repeated. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll find some other way to tell.
“Well, if it’s a male, you’ll only have a problem if you get another one and it’s a female. If it’s a female… I can’t be sure what will happen. I’m not familiar with this species. But I can’t find any evidence of sexual organs anywhere. I have no idea how it reproduces.”
“Thanks, Varec,” Liz said. Then she turned to Max. “Do you think Kryys could tell? You know… if he turned into molecules and, like, checked it out… or something.”
Max smiled then started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just the picture that left in my head… of Kryys turning into atoms and checking out the sex of a tribble… or whatever this crazy little thing is.”
Liz smiled. “Well, I didn’t mean it to be funny. I just thought that maybe he could check it… sort of… you know, internally.”
“We can ask him, I guess… if he wants to do it.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Thanks for trying, Varec. We’ll run over to Michael’s and see if Kryys can tell us what it is.”
“Okay. Sorry I couldn’t help, Zan. I’d be interested in knowing what it is myself if you find out.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Max and Liz left Varec and Amy’s house and drove to Michael and Maria’s place in the country, not far from the Valenti estate. Maria saw them coming and came out to meet them.
“Hi, Liz! Max! What are you guys doing way out here at this time of day?”
“We were looking for some information,” Liz said.
“About what?”
“Sex,” Max said.
Maria grinned then turned around and yelled into the house. “Michael, you’re wanted!”
Michael came out of the house wearing a chef’s apron and carrying a spatula.
“Hey, guys. What’s up?”
“You barbecuing, Michael,” Max asked.
“Not yet. Just getting ready to.”
“Michael makes great barbecued yegg steaks,” Maria said. Then she turned to Michael…
“Max said he was looking for information about sex.”
Michael grinned. “Well, you came to the right place, Max. I’m glad to see you know where to go. I didn’t know you needed a tutorial, though.”
“Get real, Michael.” Max raised one eyebrow slightly. “We just wanted to know what sex Harold is.”
“Oh. Well, you see, Max, you turn ‘im upside down and if…”
“Yeah, yeah! …Never mind that, Michael.”
Michael and Maria both laughed.
“We tried that already. We couldn’t tell. Neither could Varec.”
“Varec couldn’t tell? What is it… asexual?”
“I don’t know, Michael. Maybe it reproduces some other way. We wondered if Kryys could tell us what it is.”
“Probably. I explained all this to him already.” Michael snickered. “I’ll see if Kryys wants to explain it to you.”
Michael gave Liz a sad look.
“Laugh it up, Michael,” Max said. “You won’t be able to tell, either.”
Michael went into the house to look for Kryys, still snickering to himself. In a couple of minutes, he was back with Kryys.
“Dad said you need to know how to tell a boy from a girl.”
Michael grinned.
“I think Max already knows that, Kryys,” Liz said, smiling. “What Max… what we need to know is what sex Harold is.”
“You don’t know how to tell?”
Michael snorted, and Maria smiled in spite of herself. Max turned slightly red.
“We know how to tell, Kryys,” Liz said. “But Harold is sort of… different. You see, we already tried the usual methods, and we can’t tell. Varec couldn’t either. Even his scans couldn’t tell.”
“So… you want me to check ‘Harold’ out… inside…”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Kryys… Would you mind checking him… her… whatever?”
Kryys looked at the little ball of fluff and shrugged. Then he began to dissolve into atoms. The atoms swirled around the little creature tightly then passed into and through it as Max held it in his hand. After a few seconds, Kryys reappeared.
“What is it,” Liz asked.
“It’s neither one,” Kryys said. “It’s not a boy or a girl.”
“How does it reproduce, then,” Liz asked.
“I don’t know,” Kryys said. “I didn’t see anything that might function as reproductive organs.”
“See, Michael,” Max said. “It’s not just me.”
Michael grinned.
“We appreciate you’re checking Harold out, Kryys,” Max said. “Here.” He handed Kryys several coruns, equal to about two dollars each. Kryys smiled, and his eyes lit up.
“Thanks! Any time you want to know what sex something is, just bring it to me, Uncle Max!”
Michael was struggling not to laughing out loud again, but only because Maria was threatening him if he did.
“Well, thanks Michael… Maria…” Max said. “I appreciate you’re letting Kryys check it out for us.”
“What you gonna do with it now,” Michael asked.
Max shrugged. “You can’t ‘fix’ something that you can’t find the… find the… you know…”
Michael broke down and started to laugh again. “Have you thought about asking Andya?”
“Andya? Why Andya?” Max asked.
“Well, she’s the one who created it, right? Maybe she knows what it is.”
Max looked at Liz, and Liz nodded. “It’s worth checking. Alright, thanks guys. We really appreciate it… especially your help, Kryys.”
Kryys smiled.
Back at the palace, Max and Liz called for Andya, who came running from the VidScreen room.
“What is it,” Mom?”
“We need to know something, honey. When you made Harold, did you make him a boy or a girl?”
Andya thought about it a moment then looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t think about it. I didn’t make him either one. I made him like the ones on the VidScreen.”
“They weren’t real,” Liz said.
“Oh. That must be why they didn’t… why they weren’t real boys or girls.”
“Makes sense,” Max said. He looked at Liz. “I guess Harold can’t have babies then. We won’t have to worry about the palace being overrun by little tribbles.”
“It looks that way,” Liz agreed.
“Is that okay, Mom?”
“That’s more than okay, Andya. That’s… perfect!”
“So I did alright?”
Liz and Max both nodded. “Very alright,” Max said, smiling. Liz nodded her agreement.
“You can go back to whatever you were doing, dear,” Liz said. “Here. Take Harold with you.”
“Sure Mom.” Andya headed off to the VidScreen room with Harold.
“Problem solved and everything back to normal then?” Liz asked, looking at Max.
“Partly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll never be able to face Michael again.”
tbc
Coming next: Maya has a vision of someone in need of help… someone who has already been horribly hurt… and who is in danger of being hurt again and possibly killed… and she believes it is her mother… Liz.
SeXXX 101
Chapter 52
LII
Varec turned the fluffy little creature upside down and pushed the fluff aside with his fingers, then, thinking that maybe he had had it right to begin with, he turned it back over and checked the other side. Then he turned it around and checked the other end.
“I’m sorry, Zan. I can’t tell you if it’s a male or a female. The scans didn’t show anything, either. I guess I could dissect it.”
“No!” both Max and Liz said at the same time.
“No,” Max repeated. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll find some other way to tell.
“Well, if it’s a male, you’ll only have a problem if you get another one and it’s a female. If it’s a female… I can’t be sure what will happen. I’m not familiar with this species. But I can’t find any evidence of sexual organs anywhere. I have no idea how it reproduces.”
“Thanks, Varec,” Liz said. Then she turned to Max. “Do you think Kryys could tell? You know… if he turned into molecules and, like, checked it out… or something.”
Max smiled then started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just the picture that left in my head… of Kryys turning into atoms and checking out the sex of a tribble… or whatever this crazy little thing is.”
Liz smiled. “Well, I didn’t mean it to be funny. I just thought that maybe he could check it… sort of… you know, internally.”
“We can ask him, I guess… if he wants to do it.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Thanks for trying, Varec. We’ll run over to Michael’s and see if Kryys can tell us what it is.”
“Okay. Sorry I couldn’t help, Zan. I’d be interested in knowing what it is myself if you find out.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Max and Liz left Varec and Amy’s house and drove to Michael and Maria’s place in the country, not far from the Valenti estate. Maria saw them coming and came out to meet them.
“Hi, Liz! Max! What are you guys doing way out here at this time of day?”
“We were looking for some information,” Liz said.
“About what?”
“Sex,” Max said.
Maria grinned then turned around and yelled into the house. “Michael, you’re wanted!”
Michael came out of the house wearing a chef’s apron and carrying a spatula.
“Hey, guys. What’s up?”
“You barbecuing, Michael,” Max asked.
“Not yet. Just getting ready to.”
“Michael makes great barbecued yegg steaks,” Maria said. Then she turned to Michael…
“Max said he was looking for information about sex.”
Michael grinned. “Well, you came to the right place, Max. I’m glad to see you know where to go. I didn’t know you needed a tutorial, though.”
“Get real, Michael.” Max raised one eyebrow slightly. “We just wanted to know what sex Harold is.”
“Oh. Well, you see, Max, you turn ‘im upside down and if…”
“Yeah, yeah! …Never mind that, Michael.”
Michael and Maria both laughed.
“We tried that already. We couldn’t tell. Neither could Varec.”
“Varec couldn’t tell? What is it… asexual?”
“I don’t know, Michael. Maybe it reproduces some other way. We wondered if Kryys could tell us what it is.”
“Probably. I explained all this to him already.” Michael snickered. “I’ll see if Kryys wants to explain it to you.”
Michael gave Liz a sad look.
“Laugh it up, Michael,” Max said. “You won’t be able to tell, either.”
Michael went into the house to look for Kryys, still snickering to himself. In a couple of minutes, he was back with Kryys.
“Dad said you need to know how to tell a boy from a girl.”
Michael grinned.
“I think Max already knows that, Kryys,” Liz said, smiling. “What Max… what we need to know is what sex Harold is.”
“You don’t know how to tell?”
Michael snorted, and Maria smiled in spite of herself. Max turned slightly red.
“We know how to tell, Kryys,” Liz said. “But Harold is sort of… different. You see, we already tried the usual methods, and we can’t tell. Varec couldn’t either. Even his scans couldn’t tell.”
“So… you want me to check ‘Harold’ out… inside…”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Kryys… Would you mind checking him… her… whatever?”
Kryys looked at the little ball of fluff and shrugged. Then he began to dissolve into atoms. The atoms swirled around the little creature tightly then passed into and through it as Max held it in his hand. After a few seconds, Kryys reappeared.
“What is it,” Liz asked.
“It’s neither one,” Kryys said. “It’s not a boy or a girl.”
“How does it reproduce, then,” Liz asked.
“I don’t know,” Kryys said. “I didn’t see anything that might function as reproductive organs.”
“See, Michael,” Max said. “It’s not just me.”
Michael grinned.
“We appreciate you’re checking Harold out, Kryys,” Max said. “Here.” He handed Kryys several coruns, equal to about two dollars each. Kryys smiled, and his eyes lit up.
“Thanks! Any time you want to know what sex something is, just bring it to me, Uncle Max!”
Michael was struggling not to laughing out loud again, but only because Maria was threatening him if he did.
“Well, thanks Michael… Maria…” Max said. “I appreciate you’re letting Kryys check it out for us.”
“What you gonna do with it now,” Michael asked.
Max shrugged. “You can’t ‘fix’ something that you can’t find the… find the… you know…”
Michael broke down and started to laugh again. “Have you thought about asking Andya?”
“Andya? Why Andya?” Max asked.
“Well, she’s the one who created it, right? Maybe she knows what it is.”
Max looked at Liz, and Liz nodded. “It’s worth checking. Alright, thanks guys. We really appreciate it… especially your help, Kryys.”
Kryys smiled.
Back at the palace, Max and Liz called for Andya, who came running from the VidScreen room.
“What is it,” Mom?”
“We need to know something, honey. When you made Harold, did you make him a boy or a girl?”
Andya thought about it a moment then looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t think about it. I didn’t make him either one. I made him like the ones on the VidScreen.”
“They weren’t real,” Liz said.
“Oh. That must be why they didn’t… why they weren’t real boys or girls.”
“Makes sense,” Max said. He looked at Liz. “I guess Harold can’t have babies then. We won’t have to worry about the palace being overrun by little tribbles.”
“It looks that way,” Liz agreed.
“Is that okay, Mom?”
“That’s more than okay, Andya. That’s… perfect!”
“So I did alright?”
Liz and Max both nodded. “Very alright,” Max said, smiling. Liz nodded her agreement.
“You can go back to whatever you were doing, dear,” Liz said. “Here. Take Harold with you.”
“Sure Mom.” Andya headed off to the VidScreen room with Harold.
“Problem solved and everything back to normal then?” Liz asked, looking at Max.
“Partly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll never be able to face Michael again.”
tbc
Coming next: Maya has a vision of someone in need of help… someone who has already been horribly hurt… and who is in danger of being hurt again and possibly killed… and she believes it is her mother… Liz.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Visions Of Danger
Chapter 53
LIII
The man sitting on a little platform high up in the tree appeared to be waiting for something. Maya felt uncomfortable. She had been dreaming about playing on the j’koozzeen –the beach- when her dream had taken a strange turn. Suddenly, she was no longer on the j’koozzeen by the Golden Sea. She was somewhere else. There were trees all around… and flowers. It was a pleasant place… actually quite pretty. But there was the man in the tree. He worried Maya. In his hands, there was a long thing that looked like the primitive projectile hurlers that Antarians once used. Some Antarians still had them, though Maya had never seen an Antarian one herself except on the VidScreen.
Why would a man climb up in a tree with a projectile hurler? Maya wondered where this place was. The man lifted the ancient weapon to his face and peered through some kind of scope. He must have seen whatever it was he was hunting. Maya turned to see what that might be. She didn’t see any animals… only a woman pushing a wheelchair with a younger woman in it. Maya couldn’t see her face.
“The man in the tree will have to wait now,” Maya thought to herself. “The lady pushing the wheelchair probably scared his prey away.” Maya looked back at the man in the tree. He was preparing to fire his weapon. Maya looked again at the woman pushing the wheelchair, and her mind registered alarm. “Is he planning to…?”
Suddenly, there was a deafening sound, as a shot was fired. Maya saw the young woman jerk back then fall from the wheelchair, bleeding from the head. The older woman ran hysterically, screaming for help. Maya’s breathing quickened, and her heart raced in sheer panic. She tried to look at the face of the younger woman who had just been killed, but the vision began to vanish. In its place, Maya saw a man start a chainsaw and begin to cut through the trunk of the tree. In a few moments, the tree came crashing to the ground, bringing with it the man with the projectile hurler. Maya watched as the man with the chainsaw stuck the end of his own projectile hurler against the nose of the man in the tree. She turned again to look at the young woman who had been killed… only now the young woman had not been killed. She was alive, and the older woman was still pushing her in the chair. Almost as though she somehow sensed Maya’s presence, the young woman turned and looked in Maya’s direction.
Liz and Max heard the scream at the same time. Both jumped out of the bed and ran to Maya’s room.
“Maya? Maya! What’s wrong, honey,” Liz asked, flipping on the lights. Maya wiped the sleep out of her eyes and grabbed her mother, sobbing inconsolably.
“What happened, honey,” Max asked softly, running his hand over Maya’s back protectively. “Did something hurt you?”
Maya shook her head. “Something hurt Mommy,” she said, her voice breaking, as she began to sob again.
“I’m here, Maya!” Liz said soothingly. See? Nothing happened to me. I’m okay! You must have had a bad dream.”
Maya sniffed and wiped the tears off her cheeks and out of her eyes.
“Mommy, some man hurt you. And… and you couldn’t walk. Another lady was pushing you in a chair with wheels…”
“A wheelchair?” Liz looked at Max. “Are there any wheelchairs on Antar, Max? I don’t think there are.”
Max shook his head. “Wheelchairs haven’t been used on Antar for over ten thousand years. Spinal injuries are curable.”
“Where would Maya have seen a wheelchair,” Liz asked, stroking Maya’s hair as she held her close to comfort her.
“I don’t know. Do you think she could have been sensing something that happened to one of the ‘Antarians Too’… on Earth?”
“Do you think so,” Liz asked, repeating Max’s question.
Max shrugged.
Maya wiped her eyes as she began to calm down a bit and her pulse returned to closer to its normal rate. “No, Mommy. It wasn’t one of them. It was you. A man with one of those things you call a gun threw a bullet at you and hit you in the head.” Maya sniffed and wiped her cheek again.
“Shot me? Who would have done that,” Liz asked.
“I don’t know,” Maya replied. “Another woman was pushing you in the chair, and a man in a tree killed you.”
Max looked concerned. “Maya could be seeing the future, Liz.”
“Maybe,” Liz said. “It can’t be the past. That never happened before.”
“Well, there’s nothing to worry about now, Maya,” Max said. “Your Mama is fine. I’ll protect her. If you’re seeing something from the future, we’ll be very careful to make sure that it doesn’t ever happen. Okay?”
Maya nodded and sniffed again.
“Will you be okay now if we go back to bed,” Liz asked.
Maya nodded and kissed her mother on the cheek. Liz returned the kiss then tucked Maya back in and closed her door.
“What do you think that was all about, Max?”
“It could be the future… or it could have just been a bad dream… like you said.”
“I guess. Maya’s never had premonitions before. She just sees things that happen to others sometimes when they’re happening.”
“Maybe she’s developing a new thing… like a new power,” Max said. “You have premonitions. Maybe now Maya does, too.”
“Well, unless we’re planning on going back to Earth anytime soon, I don’t see this dream coming true, Max.”
Max nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go back to bed.”
**********
Max woke up early and rolled over. Liz was already up. Walking out to the kitchen, Max found Liz sitting at the table writing in her diary. A cup of coffee sat steaming in front of her.
“Oh, you’re up,” Liz said smiling. Max kissed her and sat down at the table.
“I’ve got some blue hen eggs out. You want them scrambled or in a taco?”
“I don’t know… You decide. On second thought, the egg taco sounds kind of good… with a little Tabasco on the eggs.”
“Of course.”
“What are you writing about?”
“I was just updating my diary. The last time I wrote in it was when we went diving in the Golden Sea and Alex and Isabel came with us and helped us watch the kids.”
“Well, that wasn’t so long ago, Liz. Did you put something in there about Harold?”
Liz looked at Max and smiled. “Of course. You don’t think I could forget that…”
Max smiled.
“Michael and Maria are going to join us for lunch today at the CrashDown, Max. Is that okay?”
“Sure. We haven’t been in there for a couple of weeks at least. Sounds good.”
“They’re bringing Dan and Diane with them.”
“Klein? Are they back?”
“Yeah. They came back several days ago. Dan likes to go yorith riding with Jim, and Diane needs some things from Kyyk’s.”
“That’s the first thing Diane always does when they come back after spending several weeks on Earth… She runs out to shop.” Max chuckled.
“It’s a girl thing,” Liz said. “You wouldn’t understand. I heard they’re opening a new showroom over on the south end… some Garengian owns it. He’s going to be selling the newest hover cars and bikes from forty different planets.”
Max perked up. “Maybe we could drop by there later today and look!”
Liz grinned and nodded. “I thought so. Must be a guy thing.”
As Liz spoke, Maya, Andya, and JoLeesa walked into the kitchen together.
“What would you girls like? I’ve got blue hen eggs. There are a few golden eggs left, too, I think… and the pashita bread is baking.”
“That sounds fine, Mom,” Maya said. “Scrambled.”
“Same for me,” Andya said.
“Can I boil a couple of golden eggs, Mom,” JoLeesa asked.
“Sit down, I’ll get them when I get the others,” Liz said.
Alyyx walked in at about that time and sat down at the table, too.
“What’ll you have, Alyyx,” Liz asked. “Blue eggs or golden?”
“I think there were some jaht-roo cookies and japo left over, Mom. I’ll have that.”
“For breakfast? That’s dessert, Alyyx.”
“What’s wrong with dessert for breakfast?”
“I’ll scramble you some blue hen eggs.”
“Aw, Mom.” Alyyx looked at Max. “Whatever.”
“Is Jeffy still asleep, Mom,” Maya asked.
“Yes. But I’m sure he’ll wake up soon wanting his breakfast.”
Maya grinned.
“By the way, Maya, did you have any more dreams last night,” Max asked, as Liz poured him some coffee.
“No. Just that one. But it was so real, Dad! I can’t explain it.”
“What did you dream,” Andya asked.
“Well, I was dreaming about us being at the j’koozzeen and suddenly it was like I was somewhere else. There was a man in a tree with one of those things they call a gun on Earth, and he killed Mom.”
“What? Where was this?”
“On Earth, I think.”
“Eluymer?” Alyyx asked questioningly.
“Duh,” Andya replied, as Maya continued.
“Mom was sitting in a chair that had two big wheels and two little wheels on it, and another woman was pushing it.”
“It’s called a ‘wheelchair,’ Maya,” Max said. “On Earth, they use them when someone can’t walk.”
“Why wouldn’t they be able to walk, Dad,” JoLeesa asked.
“They don’t know everything we know about fixing injuries, Leese. On Earth, they can’t always fix legs or spines when they’re hurt bad.”
“Oh. So people have to ride in a… ‘wheelchair?’”
“Sometimes.”
“Who was the woman pushing Mama,” JoLeesa asked Maya.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know her. But the man in the tree was waiting for them to come, and he killed Mom with his gun. Then the dream changed, and I saw a man that looked like Uncle Jim cutting down the tree that the bad man was in. When the tree fell, the man that looked like Uncle Jim chased the bad man away. Then the woman in the ‘wheelchair’ looked at me, and I saw that it was Mom.”
“Maybe it was just someone who looked like Mom, Andya said.
Maya shook her head. “No. It was Mom… only… she looked younger.”
“You didn’t tell us that before, Maya,” Max said. “How much younger?”
“I don’t know… maybe like she was a teenager.”
“Well, that couldn’t be Mom,” Alyyx said.
“I heard that, Alyyx,” Liz yelled back from the preparation area.
“I didn’t mean anything, Mom,” Alyyx said, as the others looked at him, putting him on the spot. “I just meant you’re not a teenager.”
Liz laughed. “Well, I’m glad I’m not. Your Dad and I have what we always wanted now. When we were teenagers, we were always having to worry about the Special Unit guys chasing us or someone else finding out about your Dad being an ‘alien’ (Liz said this word dramatically). We weren’t sure we would ever have a real life together. We worried about our parents… even our friends. There were people in the FBI’s Special Unit and in the army who wanted to kill us.”
“Or worse,” Max said, sipping his coffee.
“Why?” JoLeesa asked.
“The same reason they tried to kill us when we were in the mountains,” Max said. They don’t understand us… so they’re afraid of us.”
“That’s stupid,” Alyyx said. “We’re people just like they are.”
“They don’t understand that, Alyyx,” Max said. “That’s the problem.”
“That’s why they were chasing Mom… in my dream,” Maya said.
“How do you know,” Max asked.
“I felt it. The man in the tree… He was afraid of Mom.”
“Oh! Some big brave man… afraid of Mom!” Alyyx exclaimed.
“Well, he was…” Maya said. “I’m not sure why, but he was scared of Mom. And he was scared of Dad and Uncle Michael especially.”
“Did he shoot them, too,” Alyyx asked.
Maya thought for several moments. “I think he did… but… now he’s afraid of them.”
“Well, if he killed them, why is he still afraid of them?”
“I don’t think he killed them,” Maya said. “I think he just tried to.”
“Did they get away,” Andya asked.
“I can’t tell…” Maya replied. “I just feel like they’re in a lot of danger.”
tbc
Coming Next: Maya has another vision, and the group begins to piece together the clues to determine the most likely source of the visions, convinced now that they may not have been dreams after all. And Dan and Diane meet Harold.
Visions Of Danger
Chapter 53
LIII
The man sitting on a little platform high up in the tree appeared to be waiting for something. Maya felt uncomfortable. She had been dreaming about playing on the j’koozzeen –the beach- when her dream had taken a strange turn. Suddenly, she was no longer on the j’koozzeen by the Golden Sea. She was somewhere else. There were trees all around… and flowers. It was a pleasant place… actually quite pretty. But there was the man in the tree. He worried Maya. In his hands, there was a long thing that looked like the primitive projectile hurlers that Antarians once used. Some Antarians still had them, though Maya had never seen an Antarian one herself except on the VidScreen.
Why would a man climb up in a tree with a projectile hurler? Maya wondered where this place was. The man lifted the ancient weapon to his face and peered through some kind of scope. He must have seen whatever it was he was hunting. Maya turned to see what that might be. She didn’t see any animals… only a woman pushing a wheelchair with a younger woman in it. Maya couldn’t see her face.
“The man in the tree will have to wait now,” Maya thought to herself. “The lady pushing the wheelchair probably scared his prey away.” Maya looked back at the man in the tree. He was preparing to fire his weapon. Maya looked again at the woman pushing the wheelchair, and her mind registered alarm. “Is he planning to…?”
Suddenly, there was a deafening sound, as a shot was fired. Maya saw the young woman jerk back then fall from the wheelchair, bleeding from the head. The older woman ran hysterically, screaming for help. Maya’s breathing quickened, and her heart raced in sheer panic. She tried to look at the face of the younger woman who had just been killed, but the vision began to vanish. In its place, Maya saw a man start a chainsaw and begin to cut through the trunk of the tree. In a few moments, the tree came crashing to the ground, bringing with it the man with the projectile hurler. Maya watched as the man with the chainsaw stuck the end of his own projectile hurler against the nose of the man in the tree. She turned again to look at the young woman who had been killed… only now the young woman had not been killed. She was alive, and the older woman was still pushing her in the chair. Almost as though she somehow sensed Maya’s presence, the young woman turned and looked in Maya’s direction.
Liz and Max heard the scream at the same time. Both jumped out of the bed and ran to Maya’s room.
“Maya? Maya! What’s wrong, honey,” Liz asked, flipping on the lights. Maya wiped the sleep out of her eyes and grabbed her mother, sobbing inconsolably.
“What happened, honey,” Max asked softly, running his hand over Maya’s back protectively. “Did something hurt you?”
Maya shook her head. “Something hurt Mommy,” she said, her voice breaking, as she began to sob again.
“I’m here, Maya!” Liz said soothingly. See? Nothing happened to me. I’m okay! You must have had a bad dream.”
Maya sniffed and wiped the tears off her cheeks and out of her eyes.
“Mommy, some man hurt you. And… and you couldn’t walk. Another lady was pushing you in a chair with wheels…”
“A wheelchair?” Liz looked at Max. “Are there any wheelchairs on Antar, Max? I don’t think there are.”
Max shook his head. “Wheelchairs haven’t been used on Antar for over ten thousand years. Spinal injuries are curable.”
“Where would Maya have seen a wheelchair,” Liz asked, stroking Maya’s hair as she held her close to comfort her.
“I don’t know. Do you think she could have been sensing something that happened to one of the ‘Antarians Too’… on Earth?”
“Do you think so,” Liz asked, repeating Max’s question.
Max shrugged.
Maya wiped her eyes as she began to calm down a bit and her pulse returned to closer to its normal rate. “No, Mommy. It wasn’t one of them. It was you. A man with one of those things you call a gun threw a bullet at you and hit you in the head.” Maya sniffed and wiped her cheek again.
“Shot me? Who would have done that,” Liz asked.
“I don’t know,” Maya replied. “Another woman was pushing you in the chair, and a man in a tree killed you.”
Max looked concerned. “Maya could be seeing the future, Liz.”
“Maybe,” Liz said. “It can’t be the past. That never happened before.”
“Well, there’s nothing to worry about now, Maya,” Max said. “Your Mama is fine. I’ll protect her. If you’re seeing something from the future, we’ll be very careful to make sure that it doesn’t ever happen. Okay?”
Maya nodded and sniffed again.
“Will you be okay now if we go back to bed,” Liz asked.
Maya nodded and kissed her mother on the cheek. Liz returned the kiss then tucked Maya back in and closed her door.
“What do you think that was all about, Max?”
“It could be the future… or it could have just been a bad dream… like you said.”
“I guess. Maya’s never had premonitions before. She just sees things that happen to others sometimes when they’re happening.”
“Maybe she’s developing a new thing… like a new power,” Max said. “You have premonitions. Maybe now Maya does, too.”
“Well, unless we’re planning on going back to Earth anytime soon, I don’t see this dream coming true, Max.”
Max nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go back to bed.”
**********
Max woke up early and rolled over. Liz was already up. Walking out to the kitchen, Max found Liz sitting at the table writing in her diary. A cup of coffee sat steaming in front of her.
“Oh, you’re up,” Liz said smiling. Max kissed her and sat down at the table.
“I’ve got some blue hen eggs out. You want them scrambled or in a taco?”
“I don’t know… You decide. On second thought, the egg taco sounds kind of good… with a little Tabasco on the eggs.”
“Of course.”
“What are you writing about?”
“I was just updating my diary. The last time I wrote in it was when we went diving in the Golden Sea and Alex and Isabel came with us and helped us watch the kids.”
“Well, that wasn’t so long ago, Liz. Did you put something in there about Harold?”
Liz looked at Max and smiled. “Of course. You don’t think I could forget that…”
Max smiled.
“Michael and Maria are going to join us for lunch today at the CrashDown, Max. Is that okay?”
“Sure. We haven’t been in there for a couple of weeks at least. Sounds good.”
“They’re bringing Dan and Diane with them.”
“Klein? Are they back?”
“Yeah. They came back several days ago. Dan likes to go yorith riding with Jim, and Diane needs some things from Kyyk’s.”
“That’s the first thing Diane always does when they come back after spending several weeks on Earth… She runs out to shop.” Max chuckled.
“It’s a girl thing,” Liz said. “You wouldn’t understand. I heard they’re opening a new showroom over on the south end… some Garengian owns it. He’s going to be selling the newest hover cars and bikes from forty different planets.”
Max perked up. “Maybe we could drop by there later today and look!”
Liz grinned and nodded. “I thought so. Must be a guy thing.”
As Liz spoke, Maya, Andya, and JoLeesa walked into the kitchen together.
“What would you girls like? I’ve got blue hen eggs. There are a few golden eggs left, too, I think… and the pashita bread is baking.”
“That sounds fine, Mom,” Maya said. “Scrambled.”
“Same for me,” Andya said.
“Can I boil a couple of golden eggs, Mom,” JoLeesa asked.
“Sit down, I’ll get them when I get the others,” Liz said.
Alyyx walked in at about that time and sat down at the table, too.
“What’ll you have, Alyyx,” Liz asked. “Blue eggs or golden?”
“I think there were some jaht-roo cookies and japo left over, Mom. I’ll have that.”
“For breakfast? That’s dessert, Alyyx.”
“What’s wrong with dessert for breakfast?”
“I’ll scramble you some blue hen eggs.”
“Aw, Mom.” Alyyx looked at Max. “Whatever.”
“Is Jeffy still asleep, Mom,” Maya asked.
“Yes. But I’m sure he’ll wake up soon wanting his breakfast.”
Maya grinned.
“By the way, Maya, did you have any more dreams last night,” Max asked, as Liz poured him some coffee.
“No. Just that one. But it was so real, Dad! I can’t explain it.”
“What did you dream,” Andya asked.
“Well, I was dreaming about us being at the j’koozzeen and suddenly it was like I was somewhere else. There was a man in a tree with one of those things they call a gun on Earth, and he killed Mom.”
“What? Where was this?”
“On Earth, I think.”
“Eluymer?” Alyyx asked questioningly.
“Duh,” Andya replied, as Maya continued.
“Mom was sitting in a chair that had two big wheels and two little wheels on it, and another woman was pushing it.”
“It’s called a ‘wheelchair,’ Maya,” Max said. “On Earth, they use them when someone can’t walk.”
“Why wouldn’t they be able to walk, Dad,” JoLeesa asked.
“They don’t know everything we know about fixing injuries, Leese. On Earth, they can’t always fix legs or spines when they’re hurt bad.”
“Oh. So people have to ride in a… ‘wheelchair?’”
“Sometimes.”
“Who was the woman pushing Mama,” JoLeesa asked Maya.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know her. But the man in the tree was waiting for them to come, and he killed Mom with his gun. Then the dream changed, and I saw a man that looked like Uncle Jim cutting down the tree that the bad man was in. When the tree fell, the man that looked like Uncle Jim chased the bad man away. Then the woman in the ‘wheelchair’ looked at me, and I saw that it was Mom.”
“Maybe it was just someone who looked like Mom, Andya said.
Maya shook her head. “No. It was Mom… only… she looked younger.”
“You didn’t tell us that before, Maya,” Max said. “How much younger?”
“I don’t know… maybe like she was a teenager.”
“Well, that couldn’t be Mom,” Alyyx said.
“I heard that, Alyyx,” Liz yelled back from the preparation area.
“I didn’t mean anything, Mom,” Alyyx said, as the others looked at him, putting him on the spot. “I just meant you’re not a teenager.”
Liz laughed. “Well, I’m glad I’m not. Your Dad and I have what we always wanted now. When we were teenagers, we were always having to worry about the Special Unit guys chasing us or someone else finding out about your Dad being an ‘alien’ (Liz said this word dramatically). We weren’t sure we would ever have a real life together. We worried about our parents… even our friends. There were people in the FBI’s Special Unit and in the army who wanted to kill us.”
“Or worse,” Max said, sipping his coffee.
“Why?” JoLeesa asked.
“The same reason they tried to kill us when we were in the mountains,” Max said. They don’t understand us… so they’re afraid of us.”
“That’s stupid,” Alyyx said. “We’re people just like they are.”
“They don’t understand that, Alyyx,” Max said. “That’s the problem.”
“That’s why they were chasing Mom… in my dream,” Maya said.
“How do you know,” Max asked.
“I felt it. The man in the tree… He was afraid of Mom.”
“Oh! Some big brave man… afraid of Mom!” Alyyx exclaimed.
“Well, he was…” Maya said. “I’m not sure why, but he was scared of Mom. And he was scared of Dad and Uncle Michael especially.”
“Did he shoot them, too,” Alyyx asked.
Maya thought for several moments. “I think he did… but… now he’s afraid of them.”
“Well, if he killed them, why is he still afraid of them?”
“I don’t think he killed them,” Maya said. “I think he just tried to.”
“Did they get away,” Andya asked.
“I can’t tell…” Maya replied. “I just feel like they’re in a lot of danger.”
tbc
Coming Next: Maya has another vision, and the group begins to piece together the clues to determine the most likely source of the visions, convinced now that they may not have been dreams after all. And Dan and Diane meet Harold.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Yoriths And Harold
Chapter 54
LIV
Jim pulled back on the reins, bringing his yorith to a stop at the edge of the Starkeen River. As the yorith bent its neck over to drink from the pure waters of the river, Jim slid off and patted his steed on the side. It was a beautiful animal… very much like a horse in many ways. Clearly, it was a “horse” of a type… but the “type” was like none Jim had ever seen on Earth. This yorith had large, vivid emerald-colored eyes. The sides and head were pure white with light traces of zebra-like stripes, though these were not as prominent as those of a zebra. The tail and mane were jet black and shone with a deep, rich luster. On top of the head, there was a pointed, knob-like protrusion that made the animal look somewhat like a unicorn. Jim was uncertain what the knob actually was. In structure, it was unlike any horn he had ever seen, yet there was nothing else to compare it to. Jim suspected that it served an active function for the animal in some way. He theorized that it could contain a guidance system like dolphins are known to possess in their heads… or that it could serve some other totally unknown purpose. He was certain that it served some functional purpose, though.
Dan and Diane slid off their yoriths and walked them over to the edge of the river, and their guest followed suit. Diane’s yorith was a light lime green color, and the mane and tail were deep forest green. The large eyes were a brilliant blue-green. This animal had no trace of the stripes that Jim’s yorith had, but it did have the same horn-like knob on top of the head.
Dan’s yorith was a light but vivid translucent blue color with light golden flecks all over the body. The mane and tail were rich golden-colored, as were the eyes.
The yorith that their guest rode was jet black. It’s tail and mane, however, were a lustrous ruby red with golden highlights. Its large eyes were golden. And like all the other yoriths, it had a small unicorn-like protrusion on top of its head.
The guest slid off his yorith and patted it on the side, smiling appreciatively.
“I really wish I could take some of these beautiful animals back to my ranch. I’ve never seen anything like them! You don’t think you could spare a few do you, Jim?”
Dan grinned. “That would be a bit hard to explain, sir. PETA would accuse you of spray painting your horses and putting eye makeup on them.”
The guest nodded… “and gluing a horn on their heads… Yeah, I know. They would be pretty hard to explain… but damn, these are some mighty fine-looking horses, Dan!”
“I can’t disagree with you there, sir,” Dan said.
“They’re strong and sure-footed, too,” the guest noted.
Jim nodded appreciatively. “I’ve taken these guys into the hilliest, roughest areas, and they’ve never missed a beat. They almost seem to walk on air. Sometimes I think they do,” he added with a laugh.
“Well, if you ever want to send a few of them back to Earth, Jim,” the guest said, “let me have first dibs. I’ll tell PETA I rescued them from a circus or something. I’ll think of something.”
Dan laughed. “Yeah! Until the press figures out that the paint and makeup aren’t wearing off!”
The guest smiled. “You’re right, Dan. I guess I’ve got enough things on my plate right now without havin’ to explain to the press how I happen to have some alien horses runnin’ around on my ranch. My rivals would have me pegged as an alien. I can see it now… some old guy in a condo down in Palm Beach sayin,’ “Well, Lucille, that explains it! ‘e was a damned alien!”
Dan and Jim both laughed. Diane grinned and made an effort to refrain from laughing, but the more she thought about it, the more she grinned. Then she started to laugh, too.
“Let’s mount up and head back to the ranch,” Jim said. “We’re meeting the king and queen, Max and Liz, and his General, Michael Guerin and his wife, Maria, for dinner at the palace.”
“King,” the guest said to himself, nodding. “Has a nice ring to it!”
“It won’t fly, sir,” Dan said. “Earth isn’t ready for… that.” The guest grinned and mounted his yorith.
“He was kidding,” Diane said to Dan, shaking her head with a smile.
“Are you sure,” Dan asked with a totally straight face. Diane looked at Dan momentarily, as her smile wavered, then Dan grinned and winked at her.
**********
The guests were led into the large front reception area of the palace, where Liz and Max met them with Michael and Maria, who had arrived ten minutes before. Liz and Maria gave Diane and Dan a quick hug, as Max and Michael welcomed Dan’s “boss.” Then Liz and Maria welcomed the guest and Max and Michael welcomed Dan and Diane back again. Dan and Diane’s returning to Antar was not at all an unusual occurrence. They came and went with some regularity, since Liz gave Diane the use of the sphere of the portal before she and Dan were married. It was the sphere that resulted in Dan’s “boss” learning about Antar. When Diane was planning their wedding, she used the sphere to pop into Dan’s D.C. office from Antar. Dan almost never had visitors, and it simply did not occur to Diane to check this time to see if he was alone or not before she popped in. It was an eye-opener for Dan’s “boss,” who happened to be there, and it took a lot of explaining by Dan, but the secret was kept.
Max motioned to the three oversized Antarian easy chairs and two oversized Antarian sofas.
“Have a seat wherever you’d like. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”
Dan and Diane sat down on one of the sofas, and their guest chose one of the large easy chairs. Max and Liz sat together on the other sofa with Michael and Maria. A maid brought before-dinner drinks and a tray of light jaht-roo cookies and placed the cookies on a table between the seats then poured each person a small glass of jubish.
“Nice place,” the guest said, admiring the architecture and spaciousness of the palace. “It looks old.”
“It is,” Max said. “The palace was built 1,687 years ago during the reign of King Starma, my great, great, great… well, you get the idea.” Max smiled slightly.
“Amazing!”
“After Kivar killed me,” Max continued… “I mean, after he killed my ancestor, he took over the palace and changed some things, but we were able to return it to its former appearance after I returned and took back the throne.”
“So you had to fight for your throne,” the guest said.
Max nodded.
“Max and Liz and Michael and Maria, grew up on Earth,” Dan said. “Max and Michael returned here and retook the throne from Kivar, who was a despot. Max’s real name is Zan, and Michael’s is Rath, but among us, they’re Max and Michael.”
“Yeah, I think you told me something about them being from Earth before,” the guest said. “I think it was when you and Diane were planning your wedding… or was it at the wedding? No matter, I remember you mentioning something about it.”
Dan smiled and nodded.
Maya, JoLeesa, Andya, and Alyyx walked into the room together at that moment and sat down politely on a smaller sofa beside their parents. Liz introduced them, and the guest shook their hands. As he did, he noticed Harold peeking around the corner. Dan noticed the look on his guest’s face, and apparently, Michael noticed it, too, because Michael immediately said,
“Oh, it’s not a rat. I thought that, myself, when I saw it.”
“Oh, thanks a lot for explaining that,” Liz said. Then turning to the guest, she added, “There aren’t any rats in the palace. I don’t think there are even any on Antar. Michael just meant that he thought it looked like… well… it was little and fuzzy…” Liz started to turn red.
“Harold, come here,” Max called. “We’ll give you a cookie. Harold loves cookies.”
Dan, Diane, and the guest watched as Harold made his way shyly across the room and took the cookie from Max’s hand. It was impossible to tell how he took it. He had no arms, and his face was covered with hair. But the cookie did disappear somewhere underneath all the hair.
“What is it,” Dan asked.
The guest looked at Dan as though he had asked a dumb question.
“It’s a tribble, Dan. Haven’t you ever seen a tribble?”
Dan shook his head. “What’s a tribble?”
“I’ve heard of tribbles,” Diane said. “But I don’t remember where.”
“Star Trek,” the guest said. “Kirk had to get rid of them after they made so many babies that they filled up the Enterprise.”
“You know what scares me, sir?” Dan said.
His guest shook his head.
“That you actually know that.”
“Well, I had a past life, Dan. I didn’t develop amnesia when I moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! You should watch a little TV sometime. There’s more to life than just files and briefs.”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “There’s tribbles.”
Diane picked Harold up and stroked him on the back and tummy, and Harold began to make a purring sound.
“He’s cute,” Diane said.
“How can you tell,” Dan asked. “All I see is a hank of hair!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Diane whispered to Harold. “He’s just jealous ‘cause you’ve got more hair than he does.”
Michael snorted quietly and smiled.
“I like my hair short,” Dan said. “I’ve got all the hair I need. You don’t see any bald spots!”
Diane grinned. “I know. But Harold does have beautiful hair, don’t you Harold?”
Dan looked at his guest, and both of them smiled.
“Max, where in the world did you get this thing,” Dan asked.
Max pointed at Andya. “You want to tell him, Andya?”
“I made him for Jeffy. Harold was my present to Jeffy.”
Diane looked lost. “Jeffy?”
“Oh! Diane, you have been away haven’t you!”
“Well, for a few weeks… Who’s Jeffy?”
“Maya, would you?” Liz asked. Maya smiled and ran from the room. She returned with Jeffy cradled in her arms. Diane gasped.
“Omigod! Liz! Omigod, he’s beautiful! But… how? Liz, We were only away a few weeks. Even Antarians don’t work that fast, and you’re not Antarian.”
“Well, actually, she is,” Max corrected. “Partly.”
“Yeah, but still… a few weeks? Come on, Liz! What is going on?”
Liz smiled. “It’s a long story, Diane. The short answer is that time got thrown off, and Max and I had a baby…” She looked at Jeffy. “…in another timeline. When the timeline got fixed, here he was. Well, not really. Actually, Kryys had to go find him for us and get him into this timeline. It’s all pretty complicated.”
“And I want to hear it all,” Diane said. “Don’t leave out a thing! Not one word! When you have time.”
Liz nodded and looked at their guest, who had taken Harold and was petting him.
“He likes you,” Diane said. “He’s purring.”
“Well, I like him.”
Dan shook his head.
“You know what we need, Dan? We need a tribble in the White House. Uh, it is neutered, isn’t it?”
“It’s neither a girl nor a boy,” Max said. “Andya reproduced it as neither one.”
“Sir,” Dan said. “What do you think the press would do with that story if they got a hold of it?”
“I know, Dan! Just imagine for a moment, will you! Suspend that reality-locked mind of yours for a moment and just imagine what could be… He’s the perfect pet! All he does is scoot around and polish the floor all day long… and eat cookies.”
“Yeah… I see your point.”
“Too bad, little fellow, Earth isn’t ready for you yet,” the guest said, as he set Harold down on the floor and handed him another cookie.
“Oh, now you’ve made a life-long friend,” Liz laughed.
“There you go, Dan! See how simple life can be? A cookie and someone to rub your tummy and you purr all day long.”
“Oh, sir, don’t get me started.”
“I like to annoy Dan,” the guest said to Liz and Max with a wink. “He doesn’t know how to see things with a different perspective… separate himself from the cold realities sometimes. But he’s a good Head of Alien Affairs. He’s a hard worker, and he’s perfect for the job I placed him in. I couldn’t have asked for a better man!”
Max and Liz both nodded. “We think so, too.”
“I owe Dan a lot,” the guest added. “He’s brought that agency and our country into a new era… a new era of awareness. Unfortunately, he’s right about one thing, though. The country… the world for that matter… isn’t ready yet for everything. They wouldn’t be able to handle things they don’t understand. We have to take one step at a time. Abolishing the Special Unit and cleaning out the secret, deeply-buried agencies that lived and breathed paranoia about everything alien, though, has been a good start. If Dan never does anything else but that, he will have already done the world a great service.”
“Amen to that,” Liz said. Max, Michael, and Maria all nodded enthusiastically.
Maria was the first to notice Maya. Maya had been seated, but she was standing now, with a far-away look in her eyes and tears streaming down her face.
“Maya?” Maria said, jumping up to put her arm around her. Liz immediately ran to Maya’s side and put her arm around her, too. “What’s the matter, Maya? What is it?”
“Somebody still wants to hurt you, Mommy… and Daddy, too. Somebody on Earth. I saw Daddy in a box, and he looked hurt.”
The guest looked at Dan questioningly.
“Maya has the ability to communicate with some people and see some things in other places,” Dan said. “It’s possible she’s seeing something happening on Earth.”
Daddy was in a box that was in the air, and Uncle Kyle pulled the ropes loose and the box fell. Then Daddy fell out, and… and he was hurt… or dead. And Daddy and Uncle Kyle were very young… like teenagers.”
Liz looked at Max. “Maya’s seeing something, Max.”
Max shook his head. “I know. But this is something that never happened before. How could it have happened if we were young but it never happened to us then?”
“You know, Max,” Dan said. “I probably am pretty reality-based, but I’ve seen a lot of things since I met Diane that I never would have thought possible before I met her. Logically, if Maya sees something happening to you when you’re young, and it never happened to you, she must be seeing it happen in some other time or… or dimension or something.”
Max thought about this for a few moments. “Okay, I’ll buy that, but where? How? What does it have to do with us here? Why is she seeing it?”
“She saw me in a wheelchair a few nights ago,” Liz said, “and she said that I was in danger. Now she sees you in a box… a coffin?”
“It sounds to me,” Maria said, “like someone, somewhere, needs help, and they are tied to you… or tied to all of us… in some way… maybe because they are us… in a different time or dimension or something. If the girl in the wheelchair is you, and she has your powers, she might be able to communicate with Maya… without even knowing she’s doing it. And if the guy in the box is Max, then Maya might be able to see that, too.”
“But where are they,” Liz said. “How would we ever find them to help them. And should we even help them? We’ve already seen what can happen when time is messed with.”
“Maybe it’s not time,” Michael said. “Maybe it’s like a different dimension. There are others, you know. If it is, then what happens to them could have consequences for us here. We don’t know what the consequences might be. But if we died there, we might even cease to exist in our dimension here.”
“I didn’t know dimensions were inter-connected,” Liz said. “I didn’t even know they were real.”
“I’m not sure that they are,” Michael said, “It just makes sense to me that if any of us is killed in another dimension, if that’s what it is, that can’t be a good thing. It would almost have to have some kind of consequence for us.”
“And that would be why Maya sees it,” Liz said. “If it poses a danger to us here in some way… that would make sense.”
“So what can we do about it,” Maria asked.
“We need to make an effort to find out where this is happening and keep an eye on the situation,” Michael said. As a military man and the number one “Defender of the Realm,” Michael tended to take a preemptive view of most situations involving danger.
Max nodded his agreement. “Alright. As of now, we are going to see if we can find the source of these visions Maya is having. When we do, we’ll monitor the situation, and if it seems to require our intervention, we will decide how best to react.”
Everybody nodded.
tbc
Coming: Jungle Jim returns, and Max and the others zero in on the source of Maya’s visions.
Yoriths And Harold
Chapter 54
LIV
Jim pulled back on the reins, bringing his yorith to a stop at the edge of the Starkeen River. As the yorith bent its neck over to drink from the pure waters of the river, Jim slid off and patted his steed on the side. It was a beautiful animal… very much like a horse in many ways. Clearly, it was a “horse” of a type… but the “type” was like none Jim had ever seen on Earth. This yorith had large, vivid emerald-colored eyes. The sides and head were pure white with light traces of zebra-like stripes, though these were not as prominent as those of a zebra. The tail and mane were jet black and shone with a deep, rich luster. On top of the head, there was a pointed, knob-like protrusion that made the animal look somewhat like a unicorn. Jim was uncertain what the knob actually was. In structure, it was unlike any horn he had ever seen, yet there was nothing else to compare it to. Jim suspected that it served an active function for the animal in some way. He theorized that it could contain a guidance system like dolphins are known to possess in their heads… or that it could serve some other totally unknown purpose. He was certain that it served some functional purpose, though.
Dan and Diane slid off their yoriths and walked them over to the edge of the river, and their guest followed suit. Diane’s yorith was a light lime green color, and the mane and tail were deep forest green. The large eyes were a brilliant blue-green. This animal had no trace of the stripes that Jim’s yorith had, but it did have the same horn-like knob on top of the head.
Dan’s yorith was a light but vivid translucent blue color with light golden flecks all over the body. The mane and tail were rich golden-colored, as were the eyes.
The yorith that their guest rode was jet black. It’s tail and mane, however, were a lustrous ruby red with golden highlights. Its large eyes were golden. And like all the other yoriths, it had a small unicorn-like protrusion on top of its head.
The guest slid off his yorith and patted it on the side, smiling appreciatively.
“I really wish I could take some of these beautiful animals back to my ranch. I’ve never seen anything like them! You don’t think you could spare a few do you, Jim?”
Dan grinned. “That would be a bit hard to explain, sir. PETA would accuse you of spray painting your horses and putting eye makeup on them.”
The guest nodded… “and gluing a horn on their heads… Yeah, I know. They would be pretty hard to explain… but damn, these are some mighty fine-looking horses, Dan!”
“I can’t disagree with you there, sir,” Dan said.
“They’re strong and sure-footed, too,” the guest noted.
Jim nodded appreciatively. “I’ve taken these guys into the hilliest, roughest areas, and they’ve never missed a beat. They almost seem to walk on air. Sometimes I think they do,” he added with a laugh.
“Well, if you ever want to send a few of them back to Earth, Jim,” the guest said, “let me have first dibs. I’ll tell PETA I rescued them from a circus or something. I’ll think of something.”
Dan laughed. “Yeah! Until the press figures out that the paint and makeup aren’t wearing off!”
The guest smiled. “You’re right, Dan. I guess I’ve got enough things on my plate right now without havin’ to explain to the press how I happen to have some alien horses runnin’ around on my ranch. My rivals would have me pegged as an alien. I can see it now… some old guy in a condo down in Palm Beach sayin,’ “Well, Lucille, that explains it! ‘e was a damned alien!”
Dan and Jim both laughed. Diane grinned and made an effort to refrain from laughing, but the more she thought about it, the more she grinned. Then she started to laugh, too.
“Let’s mount up and head back to the ranch,” Jim said. “We’re meeting the king and queen, Max and Liz, and his General, Michael Guerin and his wife, Maria, for dinner at the palace.”
“King,” the guest said to himself, nodding. “Has a nice ring to it!”
“It won’t fly, sir,” Dan said. “Earth isn’t ready for… that.” The guest grinned and mounted his yorith.
“He was kidding,” Diane said to Dan, shaking her head with a smile.
“Are you sure,” Dan asked with a totally straight face. Diane looked at Dan momentarily, as her smile wavered, then Dan grinned and winked at her.
**********
The guests were led into the large front reception area of the palace, where Liz and Max met them with Michael and Maria, who had arrived ten minutes before. Liz and Maria gave Diane and Dan a quick hug, as Max and Michael welcomed Dan’s “boss.” Then Liz and Maria welcomed the guest and Max and Michael welcomed Dan and Diane back again. Dan and Diane’s returning to Antar was not at all an unusual occurrence. They came and went with some regularity, since Liz gave Diane the use of the sphere of the portal before she and Dan were married. It was the sphere that resulted in Dan’s “boss” learning about Antar. When Diane was planning their wedding, she used the sphere to pop into Dan’s D.C. office from Antar. Dan almost never had visitors, and it simply did not occur to Diane to check this time to see if he was alone or not before she popped in. It was an eye-opener for Dan’s “boss,” who happened to be there, and it took a lot of explaining by Dan, but the secret was kept.
Max motioned to the three oversized Antarian easy chairs and two oversized Antarian sofas.
“Have a seat wherever you’d like. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”
Dan and Diane sat down on one of the sofas, and their guest chose one of the large easy chairs. Max and Liz sat together on the other sofa with Michael and Maria. A maid brought before-dinner drinks and a tray of light jaht-roo cookies and placed the cookies on a table between the seats then poured each person a small glass of jubish.
“Nice place,” the guest said, admiring the architecture and spaciousness of the palace. “It looks old.”
“It is,” Max said. “The palace was built 1,687 years ago during the reign of King Starma, my great, great, great… well, you get the idea.” Max smiled slightly.
“Amazing!”
“After Kivar killed me,” Max continued… “I mean, after he killed my ancestor, he took over the palace and changed some things, but we were able to return it to its former appearance after I returned and took back the throne.”
“So you had to fight for your throne,” the guest said.
Max nodded.
“Max and Liz and Michael and Maria, grew up on Earth,” Dan said. “Max and Michael returned here and retook the throne from Kivar, who was a despot. Max’s real name is Zan, and Michael’s is Rath, but among us, they’re Max and Michael.”
“Yeah, I think you told me something about them being from Earth before,” the guest said. “I think it was when you and Diane were planning your wedding… or was it at the wedding? No matter, I remember you mentioning something about it.”
Dan smiled and nodded.
Maya, JoLeesa, Andya, and Alyyx walked into the room together at that moment and sat down politely on a smaller sofa beside their parents. Liz introduced them, and the guest shook their hands. As he did, he noticed Harold peeking around the corner. Dan noticed the look on his guest’s face, and apparently, Michael noticed it, too, because Michael immediately said,
“Oh, it’s not a rat. I thought that, myself, when I saw it.”
“Oh, thanks a lot for explaining that,” Liz said. Then turning to the guest, she added, “There aren’t any rats in the palace. I don’t think there are even any on Antar. Michael just meant that he thought it looked like… well… it was little and fuzzy…” Liz started to turn red.
“Harold, come here,” Max called. “We’ll give you a cookie. Harold loves cookies.”
Dan, Diane, and the guest watched as Harold made his way shyly across the room and took the cookie from Max’s hand. It was impossible to tell how he took it. He had no arms, and his face was covered with hair. But the cookie did disappear somewhere underneath all the hair.
“What is it,” Dan asked.
The guest looked at Dan as though he had asked a dumb question.
“It’s a tribble, Dan. Haven’t you ever seen a tribble?”
Dan shook his head. “What’s a tribble?”
“I’ve heard of tribbles,” Diane said. “But I don’t remember where.”
“Star Trek,” the guest said. “Kirk had to get rid of them after they made so many babies that they filled up the Enterprise.”
“You know what scares me, sir?” Dan said.
His guest shook his head.
“That you actually know that.”
“Well, I had a past life, Dan. I didn’t develop amnesia when I moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! You should watch a little TV sometime. There’s more to life than just files and briefs.”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “There’s tribbles.”
Diane picked Harold up and stroked him on the back and tummy, and Harold began to make a purring sound.
“He’s cute,” Diane said.
“How can you tell,” Dan asked. “All I see is a hank of hair!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Diane whispered to Harold. “He’s just jealous ‘cause you’ve got more hair than he does.”
Michael snorted quietly and smiled.
“I like my hair short,” Dan said. “I’ve got all the hair I need. You don’t see any bald spots!”
Diane grinned. “I know. But Harold does have beautiful hair, don’t you Harold?”
Dan looked at his guest, and both of them smiled.
“Max, where in the world did you get this thing,” Dan asked.
Max pointed at Andya. “You want to tell him, Andya?”
“I made him for Jeffy. Harold was my present to Jeffy.”
Diane looked lost. “Jeffy?”
“Oh! Diane, you have been away haven’t you!”
“Well, for a few weeks… Who’s Jeffy?”
“Maya, would you?” Liz asked. Maya smiled and ran from the room. She returned with Jeffy cradled in her arms. Diane gasped.
“Omigod! Liz! Omigod, he’s beautiful! But… how? Liz, We were only away a few weeks. Even Antarians don’t work that fast, and you’re not Antarian.”
“Well, actually, she is,” Max corrected. “Partly.”
“Yeah, but still… a few weeks? Come on, Liz! What is going on?”
Liz smiled. “It’s a long story, Diane. The short answer is that time got thrown off, and Max and I had a baby…” She looked at Jeffy. “…in another timeline. When the timeline got fixed, here he was. Well, not really. Actually, Kryys had to go find him for us and get him into this timeline. It’s all pretty complicated.”
“And I want to hear it all,” Diane said. “Don’t leave out a thing! Not one word! When you have time.”
Liz nodded and looked at their guest, who had taken Harold and was petting him.
“He likes you,” Diane said. “He’s purring.”
“Well, I like him.”
Dan shook his head.
“You know what we need, Dan? We need a tribble in the White House. Uh, it is neutered, isn’t it?”
“It’s neither a girl nor a boy,” Max said. “Andya reproduced it as neither one.”
“Sir,” Dan said. “What do you think the press would do with that story if they got a hold of it?”
“I know, Dan! Just imagine for a moment, will you! Suspend that reality-locked mind of yours for a moment and just imagine what could be… He’s the perfect pet! All he does is scoot around and polish the floor all day long… and eat cookies.”
“Yeah… I see your point.”
“Too bad, little fellow, Earth isn’t ready for you yet,” the guest said, as he set Harold down on the floor and handed him another cookie.
“Oh, now you’ve made a life-long friend,” Liz laughed.
“There you go, Dan! See how simple life can be? A cookie and someone to rub your tummy and you purr all day long.”
“Oh, sir, don’t get me started.”
“I like to annoy Dan,” the guest said to Liz and Max with a wink. “He doesn’t know how to see things with a different perspective… separate himself from the cold realities sometimes. But he’s a good Head of Alien Affairs. He’s a hard worker, and he’s perfect for the job I placed him in. I couldn’t have asked for a better man!”
Max and Liz both nodded. “We think so, too.”
“I owe Dan a lot,” the guest added. “He’s brought that agency and our country into a new era… a new era of awareness. Unfortunately, he’s right about one thing, though. The country… the world for that matter… isn’t ready yet for everything. They wouldn’t be able to handle things they don’t understand. We have to take one step at a time. Abolishing the Special Unit and cleaning out the secret, deeply-buried agencies that lived and breathed paranoia about everything alien, though, has been a good start. If Dan never does anything else but that, he will have already done the world a great service.”
“Amen to that,” Liz said. Max, Michael, and Maria all nodded enthusiastically.
Maria was the first to notice Maya. Maya had been seated, but she was standing now, with a far-away look in her eyes and tears streaming down her face.
“Maya?” Maria said, jumping up to put her arm around her. Liz immediately ran to Maya’s side and put her arm around her, too. “What’s the matter, Maya? What is it?”
“Somebody still wants to hurt you, Mommy… and Daddy, too. Somebody on Earth. I saw Daddy in a box, and he looked hurt.”
The guest looked at Dan questioningly.
“Maya has the ability to communicate with some people and see some things in other places,” Dan said. “It’s possible she’s seeing something happening on Earth.”
Daddy was in a box that was in the air, and Uncle Kyle pulled the ropes loose and the box fell. Then Daddy fell out, and… and he was hurt… or dead. And Daddy and Uncle Kyle were very young… like teenagers.”
Liz looked at Max. “Maya’s seeing something, Max.”
Max shook his head. “I know. But this is something that never happened before. How could it have happened if we were young but it never happened to us then?”
“You know, Max,” Dan said. “I probably am pretty reality-based, but I’ve seen a lot of things since I met Diane that I never would have thought possible before I met her. Logically, if Maya sees something happening to you when you’re young, and it never happened to you, she must be seeing it happen in some other time or… or dimension or something.”
Max thought about this for a few moments. “Okay, I’ll buy that, but where? How? What does it have to do with us here? Why is she seeing it?”
“She saw me in a wheelchair a few nights ago,” Liz said, “and she said that I was in danger. Now she sees you in a box… a coffin?”
“It sounds to me,” Maria said, “like someone, somewhere, needs help, and they are tied to you… or tied to all of us… in some way… maybe because they are us… in a different time or dimension or something. If the girl in the wheelchair is you, and she has your powers, she might be able to communicate with Maya… without even knowing she’s doing it. And if the guy in the box is Max, then Maya might be able to see that, too.”
“But where are they,” Liz said. “How would we ever find them to help them. And should we even help them? We’ve already seen what can happen when time is messed with.”
“Maybe it’s not time,” Michael said. “Maybe it’s like a different dimension. There are others, you know. If it is, then what happens to them could have consequences for us here. We don’t know what the consequences might be. But if we died there, we might even cease to exist in our dimension here.”
“I didn’t know dimensions were inter-connected,” Liz said. “I didn’t even know they were real.”
“I’m not sure that they are,” Michael said, “It just makes sense to me that if any of us is killed in another dimension, if that’s what it is, that can’t be a good thing. It would almost have to have some kind of consequence for us.”
“And that would be why Maya sees it,” Liz said. “If it poses a danger to us here in some way… that would make sense.”
“So what can we do about it,” Maria asked.
“We need to make an effort to find out where this is happening and keep an eye on the situation,” Michael said. As a military man and the number one “Defender of the Realm,” Michael tended to take a preemptive view of most situations involving danger.
Max nodded his agreement. “Alright. As of now, we are going to see if we can find the source of these visions Maya is having. When we do, we’ll monitor the situation, and if it seems to require our intervention, we will decide how best to react.”
Everybody nodded.
tbc
Coming: Jungle Jim returns, and Max and the others zero in on the source of Maya’s visions.
Last edited by Island Breeze on Sat Oct 04, 2003 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Jungle Jim Tries Again
Chapter 55
LV
“Okay, aim the cameras right over here. I’m going to be standing right here when I open. Then I’ll turn and walk into the Nan-Torel… and you guys will follow me with the cameras… into the Nan-Torel… Got that?”
The camera crew nodded.
“Good,” Jim said, noticing that his words sounded a bit déjà vu.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Jim said. “Action, gentlemen! Uh… or whatever…”
The cameras came on, and Jim smiled as the crew panned dramatically across the dark Nan-Torel and came to rest on his face, just as the previous crew had done.
“Hello, and welcome to the Jungle Jim Show! I promised you that I would return and we would take this trip into the Nan-Torel. The last time, we made a valiant effort, but, well… I guess the Nan-Torel is not for the faint-of-heart.”
Antarians, already packed around the public viewing screens and living room VidScreens for “Jungle Jim Tries Again,” chuckled at Jim’s understatement; and the mantra, “They’re all gonna get eaten,” seemed to still be the popular belief… or at least the statement that was heard the most wherever there was a VidScreen. There was no questioning that the show had not lost any of its popularity despite two previous “failed” attempts… well, failed in Jim’s opinion… Antarians considered them the most entertaining thing to come along in recent memory.
Jim turned and motioned to his crew, then he walked toward the edge of the Nan-Torel. The crew followed. As Jim had told his audience before, there were no real paths in the Nan-Torel… at least not ones made by human feet. No Antarians ever went into the Nan-Torel voluntarily. Of course, this was not news to Antarians. But there were smaller trails… ones made by… well… no one really knew what. Jim set out with his latest crew, pushing aside undergrowth, bushes, and poison Guma plants. Soon, they came to one of the small trails that lead to mysterious places unknown in the deepest Nan-Torel. Jim followed it, and his crew followed him.
Inside the Nan-Torel, the trees and dense jungle-like growth blocked most of the sun’s light from reaching the ground. Fortunately, the Antarian cameras and lights being used today had advanced power cores that could run for days without recharging.
The camera crew recorded every step Jim took, as they pressed on for the next thirty minutes deeper into the Nan-Torel’s dark depths along the strange little trail. About a mile inside the forest-jungle, Jim stopped, as a noise of fluttering wings got his attention. Jim searched the trees. He had heard this same sound the last time he had brought a crew into the Nan-Torel, but that time, they had never seen the creature that had made the sound. This time, Jim glimpsed it, as it fluttered from one dark treetop to a nearby dark treetop.
“These are Ama trees,” Jim said to the cameras. “As I told you last time, they are a larger relative of the smaller Ama tree that grows outside the Nan-Torel. The leaves of that tree are used to make salads. A smaller, less-poisonous relative of the Guma plant can also be found outside the Nan-Torel, and it is detoxified and eaten in salads, too. The leaves of the giant Ama trees of the Nan-Torel fall densely on the forest floor, and they can be very useful if you should ever happen to spend the night out here. Of course, as I have been amply informed since my last show, nobody on Antar is likely to ever do that… present company excluded, naturally.”
Around VidScreens everywhere, viewers chuckled and nodded at Jim’s second understatement of the day.
“The fact is,” Jim continued, “when Zan was forced to flee into the Nan-Torel to escape from Kivar’s soldiers during the Battle for Antar, he slept under piles of Ama leaves at night, because that was the only means he had to protect himself from the bat-like rob-jeta that descend on any unprotected living thing in the Nan-Torel at night like flying meat cleavers. The rob-jeta can devour a shebble –or an Antarian- down to the bones in just three minutes while it sleeps. If you will look up in that far tree, you will see a large nest. Shine the light on it, Gorath. Yeah, there it is! See? That is the nest of a colony of rob-jetas. There may be as many as three thousand in there. The fluttering sound we heard a few minutes ago was a rob-jeta scout moving from one tree to another. It is probably keeping a watch on us, not unlike the way a large bird called a vulture on Eluymer circles and keeps a watch on a wounded animal or being, waiting for it to die. The difference, of course, is that the rob-jeta do not wait for their prey to die. Still, we will be safe from them as long as we do not go to sleep out in the open or are not seriously injured or incapacitated.”
The camera crew looked at each other, acknowledging Jim’s words judiciously. They did not seem overly concerned, however. Jim led the crew further down the small, mysterious trail then stopped again.
“You will remember this creature from our last show, I’m sure.”
Jim bent down and carefully picked up a six-foot-long red snake with a light mint-green belly and an electric blue zigzag pattern on it sides. Above the zigzag pattern, there were small, luminescent greenish spots that glowed brightly in the darkness of the Nan-Torel.
“The one we saw last time was almost twice the size of this little guy, but this one still has all the fire power of it’s larger relative,” Jim said enthusiastically, holding the snake up. “This is an Antarian green-spotted fire snake. Most Antarians believed it to be a myth before seeing the one on our last show.”
Jim picked up a small branch from the ground and carefully pulled the snake’s tail with the branch until the tip of the tail touched the snake’s head. As soon as it did, the entire snake lit up brightly like an atom bomb that had just exploded. Then the snake threw a roaring sheet of flames high into the air. The camera crew backed up and looked around cautiously but did not seem intimidated by the sight of the fire snake or its unusual display.
“I explained last time that the flames the fire snake shoots out are its way of defending itself. In the Nan-Torel every creature must have some means of defense to survive. Few other creatures will mess with a fire snake. Now, some people have wondered why it is that the fire snake, here in all this dense jungle growth with trees and leaves and bushes everywhere, doesn’t set the Nan-Torel on fire with its defense mechanism, and I am going to tell you why. It is because the flames of the fire snake are an illusion. They are not real at all.”
Jim placed his hand over the fire snake and touched its tail to its head again. Again the fire snake lit up, this time throwing out a sheet of “flames” so intense that it went right through Jim’s hand then through his entire body, causing the viewers at home to actually see Jim’s skeleton in a sort of X-ray effect… and making it momentarily appear that he had been simply vaporized. Gasps were audible all over Antar; and for the first time, Jim’s camera crew appeared to be a little unnerved.
Slowly returning to his normal non-transluscent state, and with the radiation-like glow all over his body starting to subside, Jim smiled and carefully laid the snake back down on the trail, where it quickly slithered off again into the underbrush.
“Was that amazing or what?” Jim exulted with a huge grin. “You know, the flash of fire that the fire snake gives off is a function of two factors. First, as you have just witnessed, the fire snake gives off a type of radiation in massive bursts. This is non-lethal to humans or Antarians but can be lethal to smaller animals and to some larger animals with susceptible nervous systems. On Eluymer, where I come from, this dosage of radiation would probably have put me in the hospital and might possibly have killed me, but in Antar’s atmosphere, the radiation effect is limited. Also, you have ways to readily counteract it here. The “flames” of the fire snake are not based solely on this radiation burst, however. At the same time as the fire snake gives off its flash, it sends out a fairly powerful signal from its brain. This signal enters through the eyes of the predator and causes a kind of mind-altering effect that allows the predator to actually see the radiation flash appear as flames. The flash is real… it just would not be visible, or certainly not as impressive, without the sensory boost from the snakes mind. This snake is truly one of the great wonders of your planet.”
“I know there are some of you out there who are asking right now, ‘How is it that Jungle Jim knows so much about these animals and what makes them function?’ And that’s a good question. I never brought a fire snake out of the Nan-Torel to study it, it’s true. I did bring a dead rob-jeta out once, but most of what I know I have learned from observation and from a most unusual source… one that most of you have not had available to you… my son, Danyy, and his friends, the pawgors. You see, Danyy can talk to animals and ask them things. But since neither Danyy nor I have ever seen many of these animals, Danyy’s pawgor friends have described them to him, and he, in turn, has told me about them. Also, Zan has told me of some of the things that he learned from the jah-ee long ago concerning the creatures of the Nan-Torel. There are some very strange creatures in the Nan-Torel!” Jim smiled and leaned in close to the cameras as he said this and added mysteriously, “The pawgor has told us of some that I hope we will see… and of some it might be best if we never see!”
This information seemed to worry the camera crew somewhat, and they looked at each other momentarily, but then they seemed to decide that any danger was probably based solely on the more vulnerable nature of these flimsy creatures called Antarians and Hu-Mans and was probably over-rated in their case.
Turning to lead the crew down the trail even further, Jim almost tripped over a wiffer. Gorath turned a camera on the armored creature and followed the moving mound of leaves and grass under which it was hiding.
Jim brushed off the turtle-like creature for the cameras to get a better view. The head had a pair of stiff combs or ridges that were vaguely reminiscent of a dinosaur’s. The tail was armored and had spikes on the sides. In spite of its appearance, though, the wiffer appeared to be quite docile.
“The wiffer is harmless,” Jim said. The leaves and grass stuck all over its back are its defense. It stays camouflaged.” To emphasize the wiffer’s docile nature, Jim offered it a piece of fruit from his pocket, and the wiffer took it gently from his hand. Then Jim carefully sat down on the huge turtle-like creature’s shell, and it moved along, carrying him for about ten feet on its back before it suddenly decided to go underground again. Using its spiked tail to dig with, the wiffer quickly reburied itself, leaving only a few inches of its camouflaged shell protruding above the ground.
Now the camera crew was smiling, and many of the viewers were imagining themselves having a wiffer for a pet or riding on it. That’s when they suddenly heard the shriek. It pierced the darkness like a stab going through everyone there. And it was followed by a series of short shrieks from the other side of them. Jim looked at his camera crew, expecting to see their backsides running through the bushes, eyes wide with terror, dragging their cameras and lights behind them or carrying them dangling at their sides, as had happened with the Xarian crew last time. (The Antarian crew had refused to go in the Nan-Torel at all.) To his surprise, the camera crew was still there… every single one of them. Jim smiled.
“Excellent! That was the sound of the wild pawgor and its mate answering him! The wild pawgor is a very dangerous and ferocious animal, and I would not recommend anyone to confront or mess with one ever. But there are ways to defend oneself… mainly by avoiding being attacked in the first place. If you are attacked, there is probably nothing that will save you, so you definitely want to avoid being attacked at all cost. What we have learned from the pawgors themselves is that pawgors prefer to attack anything that runs. In fact, if you run when you see a pawgor, you are making yourself pawgor food. Standing still alone does not guarantee that you will not be attacked, it merely makes it less likely. But if you run you are guaranteeing it will attack. So if you run, you’d better be fast!” Jim laughed. “Since I doubt any of you are as fast as a pawgor, I don’t recommend that. There is one thing, though, that can almost eliminate the possibility of an attack one hundred percent, according to our pawgor friends.”
“Yeah,” Varec said to Amy, as they watched on their VidScreen. “Stay out of the Nan-Torel!” Amy laughed and nodded.
“The pawgor,” Jim said, “will never attack a creature that bends over and places both arms or forelegs flat on the ground and remains that way until it is gone. I suspect that is a form of surrender or acknowledgement of the pawgor’s dominance. In any case, it works I am told. We may have the opportunity to test that here today.”
The camera crew looked much more concerned when Jim said this. They knew what a pawgor was, and none of them really wanted to challenge one, even with their superior Dragon physiology and strength. It hadn’t been enough when Danyy’s pawgor had ripped into them on their own planet the first time they and the Antarians had met. Then, the Antarians were rescuing their kidnapped children who had been sold to the Dragons by the Ghor slavers for the Dragons’ barbaric New Year’s feast of Vyatu-Xi. Later, after the Dragons learned that the Ghors had also enslaved many of their own children and sold them… and after Michael and Max rescued their children along with many others, the Dragons became allies of the Antarians.
“Let’s move on down the trail a bit,” Jim said, walking off, following the mysterious little trail deeper into the Nan-Torel’s depths. The Dragon crew followed along behind him with the cameras and lights. After a few minutes, Jim stopped and turned to the cameras, placing his finger over his mouth to indicate quietness. Nobody spoke. Momentarily, a small creature flew into view. It looked like a large dragonfly at first, perhaps eight inches long. The wings made it look quite pretty, and the body was vaguely human-like, not in a pretty way, but human-looking nonetheless. As the creature spotted Jim and the others, it stopped in mid-air and backed up. Then it flew around them, examining each one.
“Do not touch it,” Jim said, warning the Dragons. He didn’t have to tell them. They remembered Ee-l’wee, the little Aklatian fairy. Ee-l’wee had been much prettier than this creature and quite obviously much more evolved. Ee-l’wee was highly intelligent and highly civilized. This creature was clearly not as evolved or particularly intelligent. By comparison, it was more like a chimpanzee to a human. But it was beautiful all the same. The wings were especially lovely.
“Some of you,” Jim explained to the cameras, “may remember Ee-l’wee, the little Aklatian fairy. Ee-l’wee was able to give off a powerful shock that could burn out many creatures. In fact, she stopped two of Hosk the Ghor’s hearts when he tried to capture and enslave her. This little creature, which I call a ‘Nan-Torel fairy,’ is not civilized like Ee-l’wee. It’s also not really intelligent in our definition of intelligence, but she is not at all defenseless. She packs the same electric wallop that Ee-l’wee did; and in some primitive way, it is tempting to believe that she, though native to the Nan-Torel here on Antar, is a sort of primitive Aklatian fairy.”
As Jim said this, a portion of a tree nearby seemed to detach from the trunk. Then it sprung at the little flying creature. As it’s body came within two feet of her, an electric charge so powerful erupted from the little fairy-like creature that the tree trunk attacker was burned to a crisp and fell smoking to the ground.
“That,” Jim said, “was a brown bark snake. It attaches to the side of a tree and looks like part of the tree. When its prey comes along, it detaches and springs on it.”
Jim picked up the still-smoking reptile. “This one will no longer be attacking Nan-Torel fairies… or anything else it would appear. It’s quite dead.”
As Jim looked back at the little fairy, the creature suddenly darted off. Jim looked around to see what had frightened her away, and not twenty feet from him stood a full-grown male pawgor, almost twice the size of a Siberian tiger. Jim froze in his tracks. Carefully, he glanced back at his camera crew. It seemed they had been listening. Every one of them was bent over, arms flat on the ground.
The pawgor looked at Jim and let out a threatening, bone-chilling shriek. Seeing that his crew was apparently taking his advice, Jim took his own advice and bent over, placing his arms flat on the ground. He had to drop to his knees to get both arms, not just his hands, on the ground. As they all remained perfectly still like this, the pawgor walked around them, making an unusual rumbling mewing sound. Jim wasn’t sure what it meant. Gorath felt a cold nose sniffing his backside, as the large saber-toothed cat passed behind him. He grimaced and vowed to demand more money when they got back to civilization. The pawgor walked on around the group, sniffing each backside in turn, nudging Sharno so hard that it momentarily lifted him off the ground with its nose. It seemed less interested in Jim, giving him only a passing sniff. Then the huge cat walked away, apparently uninterested in anything it had seen. After a few minutes, Jim decided it was safe to get up, and he struggled to his feet. After having been on his knees with his arms flat on the ground for the last ten or fifteen minutes, he found it a bit difficult to just stand up. The Dragons got back up, too.
“Jim,” Sharno said, “Dragons don’t normally wear clothes like Antarians do, except for a vest on celebratory occasions, but if you want me to come back into this jungle with you again, you’re going to have to have the Antarian tailors make me some pants!” Gorath, Kharsom, and Danjat mumbled their agreement.
Jim nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
**********
That evening, at his ranch, Jim was being congratulated by a group of friends and family for finally completing a whole show without his crew running away.
“That was an amazing show,” Kyle’s wife, Jeliya, said. “I really learn a lot from your show, Jim!”
“Thanks, Jilly,” Jim said. “I guess it went pretty good… except for that part where the pawgor showed up.”
“Oh, that was the best part,” Kyle laughed. “I loved that! But I admit, I was a little worried about you there for a while.”
Jim shrugged. “Well, Danyy never told me that bending over with the front legs on the ground is a mating offer to the male pawgor.”
Kyle was laughing so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
“Don’t laugh, Kyle,” Jim said. It kept us all alive!”
“Dad, did you ever think that maybe some of us would rather get eaten than the possible alternative here?”
“Oh, I don’t think the pawgor is interested in non pawgors. It just sniffed us and left.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t a Dragon, Dad. You had pants on.”
Jeliya smiled and began to giggle, and Michael grinned and slapped Kyle’s hand… “If you ask me,” Michael said, “I’d want body armor from the waist down… maybe something like knights used to wear, before I’d take a chance like that. My body belongs to Maria.”
“Yeah, yeah! Laugh it up you guys,” Jim said. “But I’m the one with the top-rated TV show.”
“Yeah, let’s hear it for Jungle Jim!” Max said, raising his glass.
Everyone raised their glasses and toasted to the success of Jungle Jim, the Pawgor’s Friend.
tbc
Stop! If you are planning to read both The Four Faces Of Rath and The Night The Dreams Died, read this next!
Author's Note: The Four Faces Of Rath shares part of its storyline with The Night The Dreams Died, starting at about chapter 56 of TFFOR (Rath). Because of this, some chapters will appear in both stories. (TFFOR chapters 56-58 & 65-71 are the same as TNTDD chapters 8-11 & 28-35). Either story can still be read by itself. HOWEVER… after careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that reading The Four Faces Of Rath entirely through before reading The Night The Dreams Died results in inescapable spoilers for The Night The Dreams Died, because TFFOR reveals large parts of TNTDD’s plot that occur well into that story. If you wish to avoid this and hopefully derive the most enjoyment from both stories, the reading order below is recommended (unless you’re already following both stories as the chapters come out.)
If you start The Four Faces Of Rath First, read the chapters in this order. You won’t be abandoning the story you started, because the plots are intertwined at the points where you switch back and forth. You will be following the storyline:
1. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 01-55
2. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 01-11
3. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 59-63 (You read 56-58 in Dreams 8-11)
4. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 12-27
5. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 64-72
6. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 36 (You read 28-35 in Rath 65-71)
7. All future chapters as they post, or finish Dreams then Rath
If you start The Night The Dreams Died first: Just skip step 1 (the first 55 chapters of Rath) and follow the rest of the outline above. Then if you read Rath later, you can bypass the chapters you’ve already read when you get to them or enjoy them again. Having read them already won’t spoil the main plotline of TFFOR.
I hope this will help everyone to enjoy these stories to the fullest. Happy reading!
Gerry
Jungle Jim Tries Again
Chapter 55
LV
“Okay, aim the cameras right over here. I’m going to be standing right here when I open. Then I’ll turn and walk into the Nan-Torel… and you guys will follow me with the cameras… into the Nan-Torel… Got that?”
The camera crew nodded.
“Good,” Jim said, noticing that his words sounded a bit déjà vu.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Jim said. “Action, gentlemen! Uh… or whatever…”
The cameras came on, and Jim smiled as the crew panned dramatically across the dark Nan-Torel and came to rest on his face, just as the previous crew had done.
“Hello, and welcome to the Jungle Jim Show! I promised you that I would return and we would take this trip into the Nan-Torel. The last time, we made a valiant effort, but, well… I guess the Nan-Torel is not for the faint-of-heart.”
Antarians, already packed around the public viewing screens and living room VidScreens for “Jungle Jim Tries Again,” chuckled at Jim’s understatement; and the mantra, “They’re all gonna get eaten,” seemed to still be the popular belief… or at least the statement that was heard the most wherever there was a VidScreen. There was no questioning that the show had not lost any of its popularity despite two previous “failed” attempts… well, failed in Jim’s opinion… Antarians considered them the most entertaining thing to come along in recent memory.
Jim turned and motioned to his crew, then he walked toward the edge of the Nan-Torel. The crew followed. As Jim had told his audience before, there were no real paths in the Nan-Torel… at least not ones made by human feet. No Antarians ever went into the Nan-Torel voluntarily. Of course, this was not news to Antarians. But there were smaller trails… ones made by… well… no one really knew what. Jim set out with his latest crew, pushing aside undergrowth, bushes, and poison Guma plants. Soon, they came to one of the small trails that lead to mysterious places unknown in the deepest Nan-Torel. Jim followed it, and his crew followed him.
Inside the Nan-Torel, the trees and dense jungle-like growth blocked most of the sun’s light from reaching the ground. Fortunately, the Antarian cameras and lights being used today had advanced power cores that could run for days without recharging.
The camera crew recorded every step Jim took, as they pressed on for the next thirty minutes deeper into the Nan-Torel’s dark depths along the strange little trail. About a mile inside the forest-jungle, Jim stopped, as a noise of fluttering wings got his attention. Jim searched the trees. He had heard this same sound the last time he had brought a crew into the Nan-Torel, but that time, they had never seen the creature that had made the sound. This time, Jim glimpsed it, as it fluttered from one dark treetop to a nearby dark treetop.
“These are Ama trees,” Jim said to the cameras. “As I told you last time, they are a larger relative of the smaller Ama tree that grows outside the Nan-Torel. The leaves of that tree are used to make salads. A smaller, less-poisonous relative of the Guma plant can also be found outside the Nan-Torel, and it is detoxified and eaten in salads, too. The leaves of the giant Ama trees of the Nan-Torel fall densely on the forest floor, and they can be very useful if you should ever happen to spend the night out here. Of course, as I have been amply informed since my last show, nobody on Antar is likely to ever do that… present company excluded, naturally.”
Around VidScreens everywhere, viewers chuckled and nodded at Jim’s second understatement of the day.
“The fact is,” Jim continued, “when Zan was forced to flee into the Nan-Torel to escape from Kivar’s soldiers during the Battle for Antar, he slept under piles of Ama leaves at night, because that was the only means he had to protect himself from the bat-like rob-jeta that descend on any unprotected living thing in the Nan-Torel at night like flying meat cleavers. The rob-jeta can devour a shebble –or an Antarian- down to the bones in just three minutes while it sleeps. If you will look up in that far tree, you will see a large nest. Shine the light on it, Gorath. Yeah, there it is! See? That is the nest of a colony of rob-jetas. There may be as many as three thousand in there. The fluttering sound we heard a few minutes ago was a rob-jeta scout moving from one tree to another. It is probably keeping a watch on us, not unlike the way a large bird called a vulture on Eluymer circles and keeps a watch on a wounded animal or being, waiting for it to die. The difference, of course, is that the rob-jeta do not wait for their prey to die. Still, we will be safe from them as long as we do not go to sleep out in the open or are not seriously injured or incapacitated.”
The camera crew looked at each other, acknowledging Jim’s words judiciously. They did not seem overly concerned, however. Jim led the crew further down the small, mysterious trail then stopped again.
“You will remember this creature from our last show, I’m sure.”
Jim bent down and carefully picked up a six-foot-long red snake with a light mint-green belly and an electric blue zigzag pattern on it sides. Above the zigzag pattern, there were small, luminescent greenish spots that glowed brightly in the darkness of the Nan-Torel.
“The one we saw last time was almost twice the size of this little guy, but this one still has all the fire power of it’s larger relative,” Jim said enthusiastically, holding the snake up. “This is an Antarian green-spotted fire snake. Most Antarians believed it to be a myth before seeing the one on our last show.”
Jim picked up a small branch from the ground and carefully pulled the snake’s tail with the branch until the tip of the tail touched the snake’s head. As soon as it did, the entire snake lit up brightly like an atom bomb that had just exploded. Then the snake threw a roaring sheet of flames high into the air. The camera crew backed up and looked around cautiously but did not seem intimidated by the sight of the fire snake or its unusual display.
“I explained last time that the flames the fire snake shoots out are its way of defending itself. In the Nan-Torel every creature must have some means of defense to survive. Few other creatures will mess with a fire snake. Now, some people have wondered why it is that the fire snake, here in all this dense jungle growth with trees and leaves and bushes everywhere, doesn’t set the Nan-Torel on fire with its defense mechanism, and I am going to tell you why. It is because the flames of the fire snake are an illusion. They are not real at all.”
Jim placed his hand over the fire snake and touched its tail to its head again. Again the fire snake lit up, this time throwing out a sheet of “flames” so intense that it went right through Jim’s hand then through his entire body, causing the viewers at home to actually see Jim’s skeleton in a sort of X-ray effect… and making it momentarily appear that he had been simply vaporized. Gasps were audible all over Antar; and for the first time, Jim’s camera crew appeared to be a little unnerved.
Slowly returning to his normal non-transluscent state, and with the radiation-like glow all over his body starting to subside, Jim smiled and carefully laid the snake back down on the trail, where it quickly slithered off again into the underbrush.
“Was that amazing or what?” Jim exulted with a huge grin. “You know, the flash of fire that the fire snake gives off is a function of two factors. First, as you have just witnessed, the fire snake gives off a type of radiation in massive bursts. This is non-lethal to humans or Antarians but can be lethal to smaller animals and to some larger animals with susceptible nervous systems. On Eluymer, where I come from, this dosage of radiation would probably have put me in the hospital and might possibly have killed me, but in Antar’s atmosphere, the radiation effect is limited. Also, you have ways to readily counteract it here. The “flames” of the fire snake are not based solely on this radiation burst, however. At the same time as the fire snake gives off its flash, it sends out a fairly powerful signal from its brain. This signal enters through the eyes of the predator and causes a kind of mind-altering effect that allows the predator to actually see the radiation flash appear as flames. The flash is real… it just would not be visible, or certainly not as impressive, without the sensory boost from the snakes mind. This snake is truly one of the great wonders of your planet.”
“I know there are some of you out there who are asking right now, ‘How is it that Jungle Jim knows so much about these animals and what makes them function?’ And that’s a good question. I never brought a fire snake out of the Nan-Torel to study it, it’s true. I did bring a dead rob-jeta out once, but most of what I know I have learned from observation and from a most unusual source… one that most of you have not had available to you… my son, Danyy, and his friends, the pawgors. You see, Danyy can talk to animals and ask them things. But since neither Danyy nor I have ever seen many of these animals, Danyy’s pawgor friends have described them to him, and he, in turn, has told me about them. Also, Zan has told me of some of the things that he learned from the jah-ee long ago concerning the creatures of the Nan-Torel. There are some very strange creatures in the Nan-Torel!” Jim smiled and leaned in close to the cameras as he said this and added mysteriously, “The pawgor has told us of some that I hope we will see… and of some it might be best if we never see!”
This information seemed to worry the camera crew somewhat, and they looked at each other momentarily, but then they seemed to decide that any danger was probably based solely on the more vulnerable nature of these flimsy creatures called Antarians and Hu-Mans and was probably over-rated in their case.
Turning to lead the crew down the trail even further, Jim almost tripped over a wiffer. Gorath turned a camera on the armored creature and followed the moving mound of leaves and grass under which it was hiding.
Jim brushed off the turtle-like creature for the cameras to get a better view. The head had a pair of stiff combs or ridges that were vaguely reminiscent of a dinosaur’s. The tail was armored and had spikes on the sides. In spite of its appearance, though, the wiffer appeared to be quite docile.
“The wiffer is harmless,” Jim said. The leaves and grass stuck all over its back are its defense. It stays camouflaged.” To emphasize the wiffer’s docile nature, Jim offered it a piece of fruit from his pocket, and the wiffer took it gently from his hand. Then Jim carefully sat down on the huge turtle-like creature’s shell, and it moved along, carrying him for about ten feet on its back before it suddenly decided to go underground again. Using its spiked tail to dig with, the wiffer quickly reburied itself, leaving only a few inches of its camouflaged shell protruding above the ground.
Now the camera crew was smiling, and many of the viewers were imagining themselves having a wiffer for a pet or riding on it. That’s when they suddenly heard the shriek. It pierced the darkness like a stab going through everyone there. And it was followed by a series of short shrieks from the other side of them. Jim looked at his camera crew, expecting to see their backsides running through the bushes, eyes wide with terror, dragging their cameras and lights behind them or carrying them dangling at their sides, as had happened with the Xarian crew last time. (The Antarian crew had refused to go in the Nan-Torel at all.) To his surprise, the camera crew was still there… every single one of them. Jim smiled.
“Excellent! That was the sound of the wild pawgor and its mate answering him! The wild pawgor is a very dangerous and ferocious animal, and I would not recommend anyone to confront or mess with one ever. But there are ways to defend oneself… mainly by avoiding being attacked in the first place. If you are attacked, there is probably nothing that will save you, so you definitely want to avoid being attacked at all cost. What we have learned from the pawgors themselves is that pawgors prefer to attack anything that runs. In fact, if you run when you see a pawgor, you are making yourself pawgor food. Standing still alone does not guarantee that you will not be attacked, it merely makes it less likely. But if you run you are guaranteeing it will attack. So if you run, you’d better be fast!” Jim laughed. “Since I doubt any of you are as fast as a pawgor, I don’t recommend that. There is one thing, though, that can almost eliminate the possibility of an attack one hundred percent, according to our pawgor friends.”
“Yeah,” Varec said to Amy, as they watched on their VidScreen. “Stay out of the Nan-Torel!” Amy laughed and nodded.
“The pawgor,” Jim said, “will never attack a creature that bends over and places both arms or forelegs flat on the ground and remains that way until it is gone. I suspect that is a form of surrender or acknowledgement of the pawgor’s dominance. In any case, it works I am told. We may have the opportunity to test that here today.”
The camera crew looked much more concerned when Jim said this. They knew what a pawgor was, and none of them really wanted to challenge one, even with their superior Dragon physiology and strength. It hadn’t been enough when Danyy’s pawgor had ripped into them on their own planet the first time they and the Antarians had met. Then, the Antarians were rescuing their kidnapped children who had been sold to the Dragons by the Ghor slavers for the Dragons’ barbaric New Year’s feast of Vyatu-Xi. Later, after the Dragons learned that the Ghors had also enslaved many of their own children and sold them… and after Michael and Max rescued their children along with many others, the Dragons became allies of the Antarians.
“Let’s move on down the trail a bit,” Jim said, walking off, following the mysterious little trail deeper into the Nan-Torel’s depths. The Dragon crew followed along behind him with the cameras and lights. After a few minutes, Jim stopped and turned to the cameras, placing his finger over his mouth to indicate quietness. Nobody spoke. Momentarily, a small creature flew into view. It looked like a large dragonfly at first, perhaps eight inches long. The wings made it look quite pretty, and the body was vaguely human-like, not in a pretty way, but human-looking nonetheless. As the creature spotted Jim and the others, it stopped in mid-air and backed up. Then it flew around them, examining each one.
“Do not touch it,” Jim said, warning the Dragons. He didn’t have to tell them. They remembered Ee-l’wee, the little Aklatian fairy. Ee-l’wee had been much prettier than this creature and quite obviously much more evolved. Ee-l’wee was highly intelligent and highly civilized. This creature was clearly not as evolved or particularly intelligent. By comparison, it was more like a chimpanzee to a human. But it was beautiful all the same. The wings were especially lovely.
“Some of you,” Jim explained to the cameras, “may remember Ee-l’wee, the little Aklatian fairy. Ee-l’wee was able to give off a powerful shock that could burn out many creatures. In fact, she stopped two of Hosk the Ghor’s hearts when he tried to capture and enslave her. This little creature, which I call a ‘Nan-Torel fairy,’ is not civilized like Ee-l’wee. It’s also not really intelligent in our definition of intelligence, but she is not at all defenseless. She packs the same electric wallop that Ee-l’wee did; and in some primitive way, it is tempting to believe that she, though native to the Nan-Torel here on Antar, is a sort of primitive Aklatian fairy.”
As Jim said this, a portion of a tree nearby seemed to detach from the trunk. Then it sprung at the little flying creature. As it’s body came within two feet of her, an electric charge so powerful erupted from the little fairy-like creature that the tree trunk attacker was burned to a crisp and fell smoking to the ground.
“That,” Jim said, “was a brown bark snake. It attaches to the side of a tree and looks like part of the tree. When its prey comes along, it detaches and springs on it.”
Jim picked up the still-smoking reptile. “This one will no longer be attacking Nan-Torel fairies… or anything else it would appear. It’s quite dead.”
As Jim looked back at the little fairy, the creature suddenly darted off. Jim looked around to see what had frightened her away, and not twenty feet from him stood a full-grown male pawgor, almost twice the size of a Siberian tiger. Jim froze in his tracks. Carefully, he glanced back at his camera crew. It seemed they had been listening. Every one of them was bent over, arms flat on the ground.
The pawgor looked at Jim and let out a threatening, bone-chilling shriek. Seeing that his crew was apparently taking his advice, Jim took his own advice and bent over, placing his arms flat on the ground. He had to drop to his knees to get both arms, not just his hands, on the ground. As they all remained perfectly still like this, the pawgor walked around them, making an unusual rumbling mewing sound. Jim wasn’t sure what it meant. Gorath felt a cold nose sniffing his backside, as the large saber-toothed cat passed behind him. He grimaced and vowed to demand more money when they got back to civilization. The pawgor walked on around the group, sniffing each backside in turn, nudging Sharno so hard that it momentarily lifted him off the ground with its nose. It seemed less interested in Jim, giving him only a passing sniff. Then the huge cat walked away, apparently uninterested in anything it had seen. After a few minutes, Jim decided it was safe to get up, and he struggled to his feet. After having been on his knees with his arms flat on the ground for the last ten or fifteen minutes, he found it a bit difficult to just stand up. The Dragons got back up, too.
“Jim,” Sharno said, “Dragons don’t normally wear clothes like Antarians do, except for a vest on celebratory occasions, but if you want me to come back into this jungle with you again, you’re going to have to have the Antarian tailors make me some pants!” Gorath, Kharsom, and Danjat mumbled their agreement.
Jim nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
**********
That evening, at his ranch, Jim was being congratulated by a group of friends and family for finally completing a whole show without his crew running away.
“That was an amazing show,” Kyle’s wife, Jeliya, said. “I really learn a lot from your show, Jim!”
“Thanks, Jilly,” Jim said. “I guess it went pretty good… except for that part where the pawgor showed up.”
“Oh, that was the best part,” Kyle laughed. “I loved that! But I admit, I was a little worried about you there for a while.”
Jim shrugged. “Well, Danyy never told me that bending over with the front legs on the ground is a mating offer to the male pawgor.”
Kyle was laughing so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
“Don’t laugh, Kyle,” Jim said. It kept us all alive!”
“Dad, did you ever think that maybe some of us would rather get eaten than the possible alternative here?”
“Oh, I don’t think the pawgor is interested in non pawgors. It just sniffed us and left.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t a Dragon, Dad. You had pants on.”
Jeliya smiled and began to giggle, and Michael grinned and slapped Kyle’s hand… “If you ask me,” Michael said, “I’d want body armor from the waist down… maybe something like knights used to wear, before I’d take a chance like that. My body belongs to Maria.”
“Yeah, yeah! Laugh it up you guys,” Jim said. “But I’m the one with the top-rated TV show.”
“Yeah, let’s hear it for Jungle Jim!” Max said, raising his glass.
Everyone raised their glasses and toasted to the success of Jungle Jim, the Pawgor’s Friend.
tbc
Stop! If you are planning to read both The Four Faces Of Rath and The Night The Dreams Died, read this next!
Author's Note: The Four Faces Of Rath shares part of its storyline with The Night The Dreams Died, starting at about chapter 56 of TFFOR (Rath). Because of this, some chapters will appear in both stories. (TFFOR chapters 56-58 & 65-71 are the same as TNTDD chapters 8-11 & 28-35). Either story can still be read by itself. HOWEVER… after careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that reading The Four Faces Of Rath entirely through before reading The Night The Dreams Died results in inescapable spoilers for The Night The Dreams Died, because TFFOR reveals large parts of TNTDD’s plot that occur well into that story. If you wish to avoid this and hopefully derive the most enjoyment from both stories, the reading order below is recommended (unless you’re already following both stories as the chapters come out.)
If you start The Four Faces Of Rath First, read the chapters in this order. You won’t be abandoning the story you started, because the plots are intertwined at the points where you switch back and forth. You will be following the storyline:
1. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 01-55
2. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 01-11
3. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 59-63 (You read 56-58 in Dreams 8-11)
4. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 12-27
5. TFFOR (Rath) – Ch 64-72
6. TNTDD (Dreams) – Ch 36 (You read 28-35 in Rath 65-71)
7. All future chapters as they post, or finish Dreams then Rath
If you start The Night The Dreams Died first: Just skip step 1 (the first 55 chapters of Rath) and follow the rest of the outline above. Then if you read Rath later, you can bypass the chapters you’ve already read when you get to them or enjoy them again.
Having read them already won’t spoil the main plotline of TFFOR.I hope this will help everyone to enjoy these stories to the fullest. Happy reading!
Gerry
Last edited by Island Breeze on Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Night The Dreams Died - PG-13 M/L, M/M, A/I
The Four Faces of Rath
E.T. Call Home
Chapter 56
LVI
The young AVMTech at the Antar Space Field outside CoruzAntar knocked anxiously on the door of his supervisor’s office.
“Enter! The door’s open!”
“Sir! We are receiving a transmission from a ship that was lost seventy years ago. We have video and audio from the vessel.”
The supervisor looked up, obviously interested. “Where is it? Do we know which vessel it is?”
“Yes, sir. A70932. It was lost 70 years ago on Eluymer, the planet Zan and Rath grew up on. It was one of the original ships sent there… part of the scouting mission sent to find a secure site for the pods and the granolith. After the primary ship crashed, two ships returned, and a fourth disappeared.”
“Yes, I remember. It was always believed that it stayed on Eluymer, or ‘Earth’ as the Eluymerians call it, to try to rescue the crew of the crashed vessel and help to secure the… cargo. I guess we can say it now, the pods. It’s no longer a secret… Kivar is only a bad memory now. No one from that ship ever returned, and they never contacted the home base again. After twenty years, it was all but taken for granted that the entire crew was lost due to some unknown tragedy.”
“Yes, sir. Well, the E.T. came back on unexpectedly this morning. You will want to see the video and audio that have been intercepted from the ship since the telemetry began arriving again.”
“Do you have it with you, Dak?”
“Yes, sir!” The young tech took a small crystal from his pocket and inserted it into a device on the supervisor’s desk. A screen on the opposite wall came on. As they watched, the vessel’s onboard camera, called an Emergency Telemetry Monitor, or E.T. for short, suddenly came to life; then, a second later, the door to the control room opened and someone walked in. It was a woman.
“Sir, I know this woman,” the young tech said. “It’s Varec’s wife.”
“The Eluymerian?” The supervisor seemed surprised. “Hmmm… yes, it does look like her… but this woman is younger than Varec’s wife. And besides, I saw Varec and his wife only yesterday here in CoruzAntar. They were on their way to that Eluymerian ‘Café,’ the ‘CrashDown,’ to eat.”
“It’s a good restaurant, sir.”
The supervisor nodded. “It’s very popular with the younger people. I know older ones who like it, too, though. Dak, did you say that this signal just began coming in this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmmm.”
As they watched, the young woman looked up suddenly and stared directly into the tiny camera, which was no bigger than a small sunflower seed. The E.T. was attached magnetically to a wire-thin but unbendable bar that ran across the ceiling of the craft. The young woman reached up and removed the tiny camera from the bar… then, after examining it, she appeared to attach it to herself in some manner.
“I believe she has attached it to a ring on her finger, sir,” the young tech said. The supervisor nodded.
For a time, the young woman sat in the pilot’s seat, thinking… and occasionally looking around at the console and systems monitors. Then she appeared to be about to leave, but as she stood up, she stopped again suddenly.
“Why did she stop,” the supervisor asked.
“You’ll see in just a moment, sir. Here it is now.”
The young woman moved her hand, and the two men saw that six armed soldiers were pointing weapons at her. The supervisor gasped.
“Eluymerian soldiers! …in charge of our craft! Where is our crew? Who is this woman?”
The young tech shook his head. “Not certain, sir. She does look very much like Varec’s wife to me, though, sir. It is possible, given the evidence seen here, that the Eluymerians also have our crew. If that is the case, I would not be overly optimistic about their survival after seventy years, sir.”
The supervisor shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid I have to agree with you, Dak.”
As Dak and his supervisor watched, the young woman made an oddly nonchalant remark; by all appearances, seeming to take the danger she was in much too lightly…
“I must have taken a wrong turn off of 285. Imagine that! I’ll just be on my way if you gentlemen will move aside.”
The supervisor looked at Dak questioningly. “What is 285, Dak?”
“I don’t know, sir. By their reaction, I believe that she is being insincere with them… possibly offering an explanation for why she is there.”
The supervisor nodded. “Yes, and she believes that they will allow her to leave, but it appears that this is a misconception on her part.”
At that moment, another soldier, one who appeared to have a higher ranking, showed up and stood between the young woman and the six men with guns. “General Hawkins wants to see you… Now!”
The young woman replied in a facetious tone that both the supervisor and Dak understood readily, “Well, really guys, I don’t think the General and I hit it off so well the last time we were together. That was kind of a relationship that just wasn’t meant to be, you know what I mean? If you’ll just tell the General that for me, I’m sure he’ll understand, and…”
The young soldier with the higher rank stepped out of the way, and the weapons all went to ready.
“Okay, okay. I’m going! But I’m telling you, this is not my idea of a good time. The General needs to find a girl who’s more into S&M. I’m more plain vanilla… Okay, maybe raspberry, really, I guess, but…”
“Move it!” the young soldier with the higher rank said in an annoyed tone. “And shut up.”
The soldiers forced the young woman to walk a considerable distance down several long halls until they came to an office, which appeared to be their final destination. The one with the higher rank opened the door and they all went in, forcing the young woman to enter ahead of them. The soldiers kept their weapons pointed at the young woman as she went in. Inside, there was a man seated behind a desk. He appeared to be someone of importance as far as the soldiers were concerned. Even the young soldier with the higher rank showed deference to him.
“Mrs. DeLuca,” the man behind the desk said, in a very annoyed tone, “You have done what no one else has ever managed to do in all the years I have been in the military. You have made me look like a complete fool.”
The young woman shrugged. “It was nothing, sir, really.”
The supervisor looked at Dak and smiled. “I think I like her, Dak. She has sh’mys. She appears not to like this man, and he has an air of pompousness to him that I find distasteful.”
“Yes, sir,” the young Tech said. “I agree, sir.”
“Mrs. DeLuca, what am I going to do with you?” the pompous-looking man behind the desk asked.
“Well, sir, I tried to tell these boys that it just wasn’t going to work out between us. I’m really not looking for the Romeo and Juliet thing right now, you know…”
“Romeo and Juliet wasn’t what I had in mind, Mrs. DeLuca. I was thinking more along the lines of Henry the eighth.”
The supervisor reached up and stopped the playback momentarily.
“Dak… Isn’t DeLuca the name of Varec’s wife?”
“I believe so, sir. She uses two names, like most Eluymerians. Her full unmarried name was Amy DeLuca.”
“But how can this woman be Varec’s wife if this transmission came from Eluymer today, and I saw Varec’s wife here only yesterday?”
“Maybe she went to Eluymer with the sphere that Zan uses,” the young tech said.
“Yes, that’s possible, I guess,” the supervisor agreed. “But still, this woman is years younger than Varec’s wife, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Um, yes, sir. It would appear so, sir. I can’t explain it.”
The supervisor replayed the last two lines of the transmission.
“Well, sir, I tried to tell these boys that it just wasn’t going to work out between us. I’m really not looking for the Romeo and Juliet thing right now, you know…”
“Romeo and Juliet wasn’t what I had in mind, Mrs. DeLuca. I was thinking more along the lines of Henry the eighth.”
“Do you know who this Romeo and Juliet are that she is referring to, Dak… or the Henry the eighth that he is referring to? It could be important.”
“Yes, sir,” the tech said. “Actually, I saw something only a few days ago about them on the Eluymer channel… the virtual link that Varec established to the Eluymerian’s cable system. Romeo and Juliet were two young lovers, barely teenagers, who were not allowed to be together. He killed himself because he believed that she had died, but she had not. When she saw that he had killed himself, she killed herself, too.”
The supervisor seemed perplexed. “Do you think this young woman, DeLuca, intends to kill herself? These people are so strange. I do not always understand them.”
“I believe… sir… that she is probably referring to her relationship with the pompous one in the chair. She means that he is her Romeo and she is his Juliet… romantically.”
“You cannot mean that, Dak.”
“Well… perhaps she was being facetious, sir. I believe she did say that being Romeo and Juliet with him was not her desire, not that it was her desire.”
“I’m sure that is what she meant, Dak. It is obvious that she does not like the man. Who is this Henry the eighth that he compared himself to?”
“Henry the eighth was a king on Eluymer who had many of his wives executed. Their heads were cut off.”
“So he is threatening her by comparing himself to this king?”
“Yes, I believe so, sir. I believe that is her impression, too, based on her reaction.”
“Play the rest, Dak.”
The young tech started the sequence again from where it had left off.
“You wouldn’t do anything to me, General. Too many people know where I am,” the young woman said.
The pompous man shook his head. “Your car was seen driving off the base about three hours ago. It went over the side of Bald Mountain near the upper pass. That was a drop of about 700 feet, I believe. I understand it was a very fiery crash. The sheriff of Copper City is on the site now, but no remains have been found. The fire was so intense, you know…”
“Dak, I believe this woman is in danger. Even I understood that to be a threat.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can’t just get rid of me, General…” the young woman said.
The pompous man smiled and nodded, indicating that he believed that he could. “Corporal, take Mrs. DeLuca away… and make sure that her departure is permanent.”
“Permanent, sir?”
“Permanent, Corporal. You heard me.”
The young woman held up her ring. “General, do you know what this is?”
“A ring? You think I’m worried about your husband? You don’t have one, Mrs. DeLuca. Don’t you think I know that? And if you did, it wouldn’t matter.”
The young woman detached the tiny E.T. and held it in her hand. “Not the ring, General, the camera.”
“Let me see that!” the pompous officer said, the smile on his face quickly fading away.
The corporal took it from Amy’s hand and handed it to the General. He turned it over several times. “Where did you get this?”
“From the TV station,” the young woman said, obviously lying. “Everything going on here is being recorded by all three local networks… and by now probably by CNN and Fox, too.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not.”
The pompous man swallowed, and there was a long pause.
“Corporal!” the pompous man said at end.
“Yes, sir!”
“Didn’t you hear me? Escort Mrs. DeLuca off the base, and make sure that she stays away from here permanently this time. You got that?”
“Just off the base, sir?”
“Of course, just off the base! What did you think I meant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and Mrs. DeLuca… I was trying to make a point with you about how dangerous it can be for a civilian to be running around out here unaccompanied. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Of course not,” the young woman said. “What about my car?”
“It was damaged, Mrs. DeLuca. It was unsafe to drive… and since it was on the base, it was our obligation to dispose of it in a safe manner. As I told you, it was being towed to a recycling plant, but it broke loose on the pass and went over the side. Fortunately, no one was in it, so there was no one hurt in the accident.”
“That car was my only means of transportation.”
The pompous man seemed to be making a forced effort to smile. “I’ll see if we can find you a replacement, Mrs. DeLuca. The Army wasn’t responsible for what happened to your car, you know. The damage to your car was your own fault. We had to dispose of it responsibly. But I’m sure Washington would not want to make a big deal out of this. I’ll get you a new car.”
“New?”
“New,” the pompous man muttered. “Corporal!”
“Yes, sir!”
The General pointed at the door.
After the soldiers had taken the young woman away, the General continued to examine the tiny monitor.
“Lieutenant!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Looks like a spy camera, sir.”
“I know what it looks like, lieutenant. Have you ever seen one like this one?”
“Well… not this small, sir. But they’re making them smaller every day.”
“Hmmm, yes, but I’m usually kept abreast of developments that might be useful to me. Lieutenant, how did the DeLuca woman get into the craft?”
“The bottom hatch was left open, sir. The crew trying to get into the control room was planning to return later today to try again with a new type of torch.”
“But the DeLuca woman got into the control room, lieutenant. I want to know how!”
“We don’t know how, sir. After she came back out, the door closed again.”
“And it didn’t occur to any of you to put something there to jam it or station someone inside the control room while the door was open?”
“Uh, no sir. How would someone inside get back out after the door closed?”
“I don’t know, lieutenant! I don’t care! Maybe there’s a door handle inside!”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Lieutenant, we’ve had this craft in our hangar for sixty years… give or take a few years… and no one, ever, has been able to find so much as a seam or a rivet anywhere on the craft. We can’t dismantle it. No one has ever been able to get into the control room. No torch or blaster will melt or penetrate the metal… or whatever the hell it is the thing’s made of. It has frustrated every effort we have made to open the control room or dismantle the ship for SIXTY DAMN YEARS! And that woman just goes in and, open-sesame! The door opens for her?”
“It seems that way, sir.”
“Find out why! I want someone watching that woman twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I don’t want her to go to the bathroom without someone knowing where she is. You got that?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. I’m surprised she didn’t ask you idiots if there was a key and fly the thing away under your noses! Get out of here. Oh, and lieutenant…”
“Sir?”
“Find out who makes these tiny spycams. I need some. And find out why I wasn’t advised of their development. I don’t like having local TV networks using equipment that I didn’t even know existed.”
“Yes, sir!”
The General put the tiny monitor into a desk drawer and closed the drawer. With no light or sound reaching it any more, the little camera cut itself off. The supervisor and Dak both knew that it could come back on at any time, though, if the General should decide to take it out of his drawer again at some future time.
“Dak, I think Zan and Rath need to see this. I’m going to take it to them right now. Continue monitoring the transmissions in case the pompous Eluymerian general takes our monitoring device back out of his drawer.”
“Yes, sir.”
**********
At the palace, Max and Liz huddled in front of the VidScreen with Alex and Isabel, as the supervisor from the spaceport watched from behind them. Max turned the VidScreen off and removed the small crystal, then he handed it to the supervisor.
“You were right, Kesvyn. This is important.”
“I thought you would want to know about it immediately, Zan. The fact that an Antarian craft… and possibly Antarian crewmen… are being held by Eluymerian soldiers… Then there is also the danger to the young woman, though it would seem that she was able to talk her way out of being executed… for now at least. Dak and I were thinking that this young woman looks very much like Varec’s wife.”
Max nodded. “It is Varec’s wife, Kesvyn.”
“But I saw her with Varec only yesterday, Zan. They were on their way to the CrashDown.”
“The young woman in the transmission is Amy DeLuca,” Max said. “But not the Amy we know here on Antar. I’m not entirely sure what is going on, Kesvyn. We may be receiving transmissions from the past…”
“Or from another dimension…” Alex offered.
Max nodded. “We don’t have any experience with dimensional theory or travel. We’ve never proven that alternate dimensions even exist… or that they don’t exist, of course. But we have had experience with traveling to the past.”
“If this was from a past timeline,” Alex said, “Amy would remember this happening to her… and she would have mentioned it, don’t you think?”
Max nodded. “It would seem so, Alex. “What is the difference between a timeline and a dimension anyway?”
“A timeline is a branch or alteration of the existing past,” Liz said. “It can change, depending on the factors that affect and shape it. But only one timeline can exist at a time. Once a part of a timeline is changed, the entire timeline is changed. It’s like going back and killing your grandfather… You would never be born, and the entire timeline would be changed. On the other hand, theoretically, at least, there could be any number of dimensions all existing at the same time, and each dimension could have its own progression of events. Dimensions wouldn’t have to be the same. In an alternate dimension, for instance, your dupes from New York might be living here on Antar now, and the Antarian scientists might not have ever created another set… so you might not exist. Or Kivar might still control Antar. There could be any number of possibilities. Max and Tess could be married…”
Max threw a pillow playfully at Liz. “Some things were meant to be, Liz, and some things never were. I don’t see that happening in any dimension!”
“Wasn’t Zan married to Ava in the past that Michael went back to,” Liz asked. “You know, the older Zan and Ava? Michael said they were quite happy together.”
“Yeah, they were,” Max agreed. “But they were an extension of the past… In that timeline, we were never killed, so we never went to Earth and never met you and Maria… The older me and Rath and Ava were kind of like… us before there was us, you know… or us if there never was an us.”
“That’s true.”
“Believe me, Liz,” Max said. “There’s only one girl for me in any dimension.”
“That remains to be seen, Max. But I like it that you think so.” Liz leaned over and kissed Max, which to Max’s embarrassment, seemed to have the approval of everyone in the room, judging by the smiles and applause, especially from Alex.
“Just wait, Alex. I’ll catch you and Isabel all wrapped up together sometime. Payback is coming.”
Isabel looked at Alex and grinned.
“Uh, moving right along here,” Alex said…
“Well, the question, as I see it,” Max said… “is what are we going to do with this information? And there’s something else that may possibly be involved here. I don’t know if it’s related, but Maya has had dreams… or perhaps visions… recently of something unexplainable going on. Maya saw Liz in a wheelchair, and she said that she thought her mother looked younger… like a teenager. She said that she saw someone shoot Liz from a tree, but then Jim Valenti chopped the tree down, and when she looked again, Liz was not shot. Then a couple of days later, Maya saw me in a coffin, and she said I looked younger, too.”
“It could be related, Max,” Liz agreed. “You and I were younger in Maya’s visions, and Amy is younger in this transmission…”
“But the transmission was sent today,” Kesvyn said.
“Yeah, Alex nodded, “but if we’re picking up some kind of vibes from, like, an alternate dimension or something, maybe we’re all still younger there… like Liz said… We wouldn’t have to be the same.”
“That could be,” Max agreed. “But then the thought occurs to me that maybe it might be wrong for us to interfere at all in another dimension’s… progression… or whatever. You know what I mean?”
“What?” Isabel said… “You mean if Liz was going to be killed, you wouldn’t want to save her, Max?”
“No, I didn’t say that, Iz. I’d want to… You know that. I just don’t know if I should.”
“But would you?” Isabel asked.
Max looked at Liz and sighed. “Yeah, I guess I’d have to defend Liz in any dimension. I just couldn’t not protect her, you know?”
“But maybe I’m supposed to die in that other dimension, Max,” Liz said. “Then you would be changing what was supposed to be.”
“Well, that’s assuming you subscribe to the theory that something is ‘supposed’ to go a certain way,” Max said. “What if it’s all random… just what we make it? If I saw you about to be harmed here, Liz, I’d protect you. What’s the difference? If it’s right for me to intervene in this dimension can it be wrong somewhere else? If I wasn’t around and something was going to happen to you and someone from another dimension saved you, I’d be thankful! I wouldn’t question what was supposed to be, because I don’t believe in destiny.”
“Like us being together?” Liz asked.
“Well, sure, that’s… I believe in that,” Max said. But that’s a destiny that I made… that we made… together. It didn’t just happen without our help. We had to put something into it.”
“That’s true,” Liz said. “Future Max tried to change our destiny once.”
“And he screwed it up for all of us,” Alex reminded Liz… until Max and Michael fixed it.”
“But he did it,” Max said. “And we did it again… by changing it back. ’Meant to be’ and ’Destiny’ are real… but they’re what we make them. If something works out well, we say that it was meant to be. If it works out badly, we say that it wasn’t meant to be. It refers to the ‘rightness’ of something. But that doesn’t make things happen. Only we can affect our destinies.
Max looked up to see Kyle standing there.
“Max, you’ve got visitors.”
“Who is it, Kyle?”
“I think you’d better see for yourself.”
Kyle turned and motioned to someone to come in. Michael and Maria walked through the door… and there were two other people with them.
Max, Liz, Alex, Isabel, and the spaceport supervisor, Kesvyn, all stood up as the guests entered. Their mouths were open far enough that they could have been shouting, but no words seemed to come out.
“Alex Whitman and Liz… uh… Evans…” Kyle said with a wry grin, obviously loving their reactions… “I want you to meet Alex Whitman and Liz Parker.”
tbc
Coming Next: Max and Liz’s “guests,” Alex and Liz, are overwhelmed by the palace and Antar and unsure what has happened to them. Max and the others realize that there no longer is a moral argument or question about helping them. The questions now become merely when and how… and... well, what to do with another Alex and Liz.
E.T. Call Home
Chapter 56
LVI
The young AVMTech at the Antar Space Field outside CoruzAntar knocked anxiously on the door of his supervisor’s office.
“Enter! The door’s open!”
“Sir! We are receiving a transmission from a ship that was lost seventy years ago. We have video and audio from the vessel.”
The supervisor looked up, obviously interested. “Where is it? Do we know which vessel it is?”
“Yes, sir. A70932. It was lost 70 years ago on Eluymer, the planet Zan and Rath grew up on. It was one of the original ships sent there… part of the scouting mission sent to find a secure site for the pods and the granolith. After the primary ship crashed, two ships returned, and a fourth disappeared.”
“Yes, I remember. It was always believed that it stayed on Eluymer, or ‘Earth’ as the Eluymerians call it, to try to rescue the crew of the crashed vessel and help to secure the… cargo. I guess we can say it now, the pods. It’s no longer a secret… Kivar is only a bad memory now. No one from that ship ever returned, and they never contacted the home base again. After twenty years, it was all but taken for granted that the entire crew was lost due to some unknown tragedy.”
“Yes, sir. Well, the E.T. came back on unexpectedly this morning. You will want to see the video and audio that have been intercepted from the ship since the telemetry began arriving again.”
“Do you have it with you, Dak?”
“Yes, sir!” The young tech took a small crystal from his pocket and inserted it into a device on the supervisor’s desk. A screen on the opposite wall came on. As they watched, the vessel’s onboard camera, called an Emergency Telemetry Monitor, or E.T. for short, suddenly came to life; then, a second later, the door to the control room opened and someone walked in. It was a woman.
“Sir, I know this woman,” the young tech said. “It’s Varec’s wife.”
“The Eluymerian?” The supervisor seemed surprised. “Hmmm… yes, it does look like her… but this woman is younger than Varec’s wife. And besides, I saw Varec and his wife only yesterday here in CoruzAntar. They were on their way to that Eluymerian ‘Café,’ the ‘CrashDown,’ to eat.”
“It’s a good restaurant, sir.”
The supervisor nodded. “It’s very popular with the younger people. I know older ones who like it, too, though. Dak, did you say that this signal just began coming in this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmmm.”
As they watched, the young woman looked up suddenly and stared directly into the tiny camera, which was no bigger than a small sunflower seed. The E.T. was attached magnetically to a wire-thin but unbendable bar that ran across the ceiling of the craft. The young woman reached up and removed the tiny camera from the bar… then, after examining it, she appeared to attach it to herself in some manner.
“I believe she has attached it to a ring on her finger, sir,” the young tech said. The supervisor nodded.
For a time, the young woman sat in the pilot’s seat, thinking… and occasionally looking around at the console and systems monitors. Then she appeared to be about to leave, but as she stood up, she stopped again suddenly.
“Why did she stop,” the supervisor asked.
“You’ll see in just a moment, sir. Here it is now.”
The young woman moved her hand, and the two men saw that six armed soldiers were pointing weapons at her. The supervisor gasped.
“Eluymerian soldiers! …in charge of our craft! Where is our crew? Who is this woman?”
The young tech shook his head. “Not certain, sir. She does look very much like Varec’s wife to me, though, sir. It is possible, given the evidence seen here, that the Eluymerians also have our crew. If that is the case, I would not be overly optimistic about their survival after seventy years, sir.”
The supervisor shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid I have to agree with you, Dak.”
As Dak and his supervisor watched, the young woman made an oddly nonchalant remark; by all appearances, seeming to take the danger she was in much too lightly…
“I must have taken a wrong turn off of 285. Imagine that! I’ll just be on my way if you gentlemen will move aside.”
The supervisor looked at Dak questioningly. “What is 285, Dak?”
“I don’t know, sir. By their reaction, I believe that she is being insincere with them… possibly offering an explanation for why she is there.”
The supervisor nodded. “Yes, and she believes that they will allow her to leave, but it appears that this is a misconception on her part.”
At that moment, another soldier, one who appeared to have a higher ranking, showed up and stood between the young woman and the six men with guns. “General Hawkins wants to see you… Now!”
The young woman replied in a facetious tone that both the supervisor and Dak understood readily, “Well, really guys, I don’t think the General and I hit it off so well the last time we were together. That was kind of a relationship that just wasn’t meant to be, you know what I mean? If you’ll just tell the General that for me, I’m sure he’ll understand, and…”
The young soldier with the higher rank stepped out of the way, and the weapons all went to ready.
“Okay, okay. I’m going! But I’m telling you, this is not my idea of a good time. The General needs to find a girl who’s more into S&M. I’m more plain vanilla… Okay, maybe raspberry, really, I guess, but…”
“Move it!” the young soldier with the higher rank said in an annoyed tone. “And shut up.”
The soldiers forced the young woman to walk a considerable distance down several long halls until they came to an office, which appeared to be their final destination. The one with the higher rank opened the door and they all went in, forcing the young woman to enter ahead of them. The soldiers kept their weapons pointed at the young woman as she went in. Inside, there was a man seated behind a desk. He appeared to be someone of importance as far as the soldiers were concerned. Even the young soldier with the higher rank showed deference to him.
“Mrs. DeLuca,” the man behind the desk said, in a very annoyed tone, “You have done what no one else has ever managed to do in all the years I have been in the military. You have made me look like a complete fool.”
The young woman shrugged. “It was nothing, sir, really.”
The supervisor looked at Dak and smiled. “I think I like her, Dak. She has sh’mys. She appears not to like this man, and he has an air of pompousness to him that I find distasteful.”
“Yes, sir,” the young Tech said. “I agree, sir.”
“Mrs. DeLuca, what am I going to do with you?” the pompous-looking man behind the desk asked.
“Well, sir, I tried to tell these boys that it just wasn’t going to work out between us. I’m really not looking for the Romeo and Juliet thing right now, you know…”
“Romeo and Juliet wasn’t what I had in mind, Mrs. DeLuca. I was thinking more along the lines of Henry the eighth.”
The supervisor reached up and stopped the playback momentarily.
“Dak… Isn’t DeLuca the name of Varec’s wife?”
“I believe so, sir. She uses two names, like most Eluymerians. Her full unmarried name was Amy DeLuca.”
“But how can this woman be Varec’s wife if this transmission came from Eluymer today, and I saw Varec’s wife here only yesterday?”
“Maybe she went to Eluymer with the sphere that Zan uses,” the young tech said.
“Yes, that’s possible, I guess,” the supervisor agreed. “But still, this woman is years younger than Varec’s wife, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Um, yes, sir. It would appear so, sir. I can’t explain it.”
The supervisor replayed the last two lines of the transmission.
“Well, sir, I tried to tell these boys that it just wasn’t going to work out between us. I’m really not looking for the Romeo and Juliet thing right now, you know…”
“Romeo and Juliet wasn’t what I had in mind, Mrs. DeLuca. I was thinking more along the lines of Henry the eighth.”
“Do you know who this Romeo and Juliet are that she is referring to, Dak… or the Henry the eighth that he is referring to? It could be important.”
“Yes, sir,” the tech said. “Actually, I saw something only a few days ago about them on the Eluymer channel… the virtual link that Varec established to the Eluymerian’s cable system. Romeo and Juliet were two young lovers, barely teenagers, who were not allowed to be together. He killed himself because he believed that she had died, but she had not. When she saw that he had killed himself, she killed herself, too.”
The supervisor seemed perplexed. “Do you think this young woman, DeLuca, intends to kill herself? These people are so strange. I do not always understand them.”
“I believe… sir… that she is probably referring to her relationship with the pompous one in the chair. She means that he is her Romeo and she is his Juliet… romantically.”
“You cannot mean that, Dak.”
“Well… perhaps she was being facetious, sir. I believe she did say that being Romeo and Juliet with him was not her desire, not that it was her desire.”
“I’m sure that is what she meant, Dak. It is obvious that she does not like the man. Who is this Henry the eighth that he compared himself to?”
“Henry the eighth was a king on Eluymer who had many of his wives executed. Their heads were cut off.”
“So he is threatening her by comparing himself to this king?”
“Yes, I believe so, sir. I believe that is her impression, too, based on her reaction.”
“Play the rest, Dak.”
The young tech started the sequence again from where it had left off.
“You wouldn’t do anything to me, General. Too many people know where I am,” the young woman said.
The pompous man shook his head. “Your car was seen driving off the base about three hours ago. It went over the side of Bald Mountain near the upper pass. That was a drop of about 700 feet, I believe. I understand it was a very fiery crash. The sheriff of Copper City is on the site now, but no remains have been found. The fire was so intense, you know…”
“Dak, I believe this woman is in danger. Even I understood that to be a threat.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can’t just get rid of me, General…” the young woman said.
The pompous man smiled and nodded, indicating that he believed that he could. “Corporal, take Mrs. DeLuca away… and make sure that her departure is permanent.”
“Permanent, sir?”
“Permanent, Corporal. You heard me.”
The young woman held up her ring. “General, do you know what this is?”
“A ring? You think I’m worried about your husband? You don’t have one, Mrs. DeLuca. Don’t you think I know that? And if you did, it wouldn’t matter.”
The young woman detached the tiny E.T. and held it in her hand. “Not the ring, General, the camera.”
“Let me see that!” the pompous officer said, the smile on his face quickly fading away.
The corporal took it from Amy’s hand and handed it to the General. He turned it over several times. “Where did you get this?”
“From the TV station,” the young woman said, obviously lying. “Everything going on here is being recorded by all three local networks… and by now probably by CNN and Fox, too.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not.”
The pompous man swallowed, and there was a long pause.
“Corporal!” the pompous man said at end.
“Yes, sir!”
“Didn’t you hear me? Escort Mrs. DeLuca off the base, and make sure that she stays away from here permanently this time. You got that?”
“Just off the base, sir?”
“Of course, just off the base! What did you think I meant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and Mrs. DeLuca… I was trying to make a point with you about how dangerous it can be for a civilian to be running around out here unaccompanied. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Of course not,” the young woman said. “What about my car?”
“It was damaged, Mrs. DeLuca. It was unsafe to drive… and since it was on the base, it was our obligation to dispose of it in a safe manner. As I told you, it was being towed to a recycling plant, but it broke loose on the pass and went over the side. Fortunately, no one was in it, so there was no one hurt in the accident.”
“That car was my only means of transportation.”
The pompous man seemed to be making a forced effort to smile. “I’ll see if we can find you a replacement, Mrs. DeLuca. The Army wasn’t responsible for what happened to your car, you know. The damage to your car was your own fault. We had to dispose of it responsibly. But I’m sure Washington would not want to make a big deal out of this. I’ll get you a new car.”
“New?”
“New,” the pompous man muttered. “Corporal!”
“Yes, sir!”
The General pointed at the door.
After the soldiers had taken the young woman away, the General continued to examine the tiny monitor.
“Lieutenant!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Looks like a spy camera, sir.”
“I know what it looks like, lieutenant. Have you ever seen one like this one?”
“Well… not this small, sir. But they’re making them smaller every day.”
“Hmmm, yes, but I’m usually kept abreast of developments that might be useful to me. Lieutenant, how did the DeLuca woman get into the craft?”
“The bottom hatch was left open, sir. The crew trying to get into the control room was planning to return later today to try again with a new type of torch.”
“But the DeLuca woman got into the control room, lieutenant. I want to know how!”
“We don’t know how, sir. After she came back out, the door closed again.”
“And it didn’t occur to any of you to put something there to jam it or station someone inside the control room while the door was open?”
“Uh, no sir. How would someone inside get back out after the door closed?”
“I don’t know, lieutenant! I don’t care! Maybe there’s a door handle inside!”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Lieutenant, we’ve had this craft in our hangar for sixty years… give or take a few years… and no one, ever, has been able to find so much as a seam or a rivet anywhere on the craft. We can’t dismantle it. No one has ever been able to get into the control room. No torch or blaster will melt or penetrate the metal… or whatever the hell it is the thing’s made of. It has frustrated every effort we have made to open the control room or dismantle the ship for SIXTY DAMN YEARS! And that woman just goes in and, open-sesame! The door opens for her?”
“It seems that way, sir.”
“Find out why! I want someone watching that woman twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I don’t want her to go to the bathroom without someone knowing where she is. You got that?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. I’m surprised she didn’t ask you idiots if there was a key and fly the thing away under your noses! Get out of here. Oh, and lieutenant…”
“Sir?”
“Find out who makes these tiny spycams. I need some. And find out why I wasn’t advised of their development. I don’t like having local TV networks using equipment that I didn’t even know existed.”
“Yes, sir!”
The General put the tiny monitor into a desk drawer and closed the drawer. With no light or sound reaching it any more, the little camera cut itself off. The supervisor and Dak both knew that it could come back on at any time, though, if the General should decide to take it out of his drawer again at some future time.
“Dak, I think Zan and Rath need to see this. I’m going to take it to them right now. Continue monitoring the transmissions in case the pompous Eluymerian general takes our monitoring device back out of his drawer.”
“Yes, sir.”
**********
At the palace, Max and Liz huddled in front of the VidScreen with Alex and Isabel, as the supervisor from the spaceport watched from behind them. Max turned the VidScreen off and removed the small crystal, then he handed it to the supervisor.
“You were right, Kesvyn. This is important.”
“I thought you would want to know about it immediately, Zan. The fact that an Antarian craft… and possibly Antarian crewmen… are being held by Eluymerian soldiers… Then there is also the danger to the young woman, though it would seem that she was able to talk her way out of being executed… for now at least. Dak and I were thinking that this young woman looks very much like Varec’s wife.”
Max nodded. “It is Varec’s wife, Kesvyn.”
“But I saw her with Varec only yesterday, Zan. They were on their way to the CrashDown.”
“The young woman in the transmission is Amy DeLuca,” Max said. “But not the Amy we know here on Antar. I’m not entirely sure what is going on, Kesvyn. We may be receiving transmissions from the past…”
“Or from another dimension…” Alex offered.
Max nodded. “We don’t have any experience with dimensional theory or travel. We’ve never proven that alternate dimensions even exist… or that they don’t exist, of course. But we have had experience with traveling to the past.”
“If this was from a past timeline,” Alex said, “Amy would remember this happening to her… and she would have mentioned it, don’t you think?”
Max nodded. “It would seem so, Alex. “What is the difference between a timeline and a dimension anyway?”
“A timeline is a branch or alteration of the existing past,” Liz said. “It can change, depending on the factors that affect and shape it. But only one timeline can exist at a time. Once a part of a timeline is changed, the entire timeline is changed. It’s like going back and killing your grandfather… You would never be born, and the entire timeline would be changed. On the other hand, theoretically, at least, there could be any number of dimensions all existing at the same time, and each dimension could have its own progression of events. Dimensions wouldn’t have to be the same. In an alternate dimension, for instance, your dupes from New York might be living here on Antar now, and the Antarian scientists might not have ever created another set… so you might not exist. Or Kivar might still control Antar. There could be any number of possibilities. Max and Tess could be married…”
Max threw a pillow playfully at Liz. “Some things were meant to be, Liz, and some things never were. I don’t see that happening in any dimension!”
“Wasn’t Zan married to Ava in the past that Michael went back to,” Liz asked. “You know, the older Zan and Ava? Michael said they were quite happy together.”
“Yeah, they were,” Max agreed. “But they were an extension of the past… In that timeline, we were never killed, so we never went to Earth and never met you and Maria… The older me and Rath and Ava were kind of like… us before there was us, you know… or us if there never was an us.”
“That’s true.”
“Believe me, Liz,” Max said. “There’s only one girl for me in any dimension.”
“That remains to be seen, Max. But I like it that you think so.” Liz leaned over and kissed Max, which to Max’s embarrassment, seemed to have the approval of everyone in the room, judging by the smiles and applause, especially from Alex.
“Just wait, Alex. I’ll catch you and Isabel all wrapped up together sometime. Payback is coming.”
Isabel looked at Alex and grinned.
“Uh, moving right along here,” Alex said…
“Well, the question, as I see it,” Max said… “is what are we going to do with this information? And there’s something else that may possibly be involved here. I don’t know if it’s related, but Maya has had dreams… or perhaps visions… recently of something unexplainable going on. Maya saw Liz in a wheelchair, and she said that she thought her mother looked younger… like a teenager. She said that she saw someone shoot Liz from a tree, but then Jim Valenti chopped the tree down, and when she looked again, Liz was not shot. Then a couple of days later, Maya saw me in a coffin, and she said I looked younger, too.”
“It could be related, Max,” Liz agreed. “You and I were younger in Maya’s visions, and Amy is younger in this transmission…”
“But the transmission was sent today,” Kesvyn said.
“Yeah, Alex nodded, “but if we’re picking up some kind of vibes from, like, an alternate dimension or something, maybe we’re all still younger there… like Liz said… We wouldn’t have to be the same.”
“That could be,” Max agreed. “But then the thought occurs to me that maybe it might be wrong for us to interfere at all in another dimension’s… progression… or whatever. You know what I mean?”
“What?” Isabel said… “You mean if Liz was going to be killed, you wouldn’t want to save her, Max?”
“No, I didn’t say that, Iz. I’d want to… You know that. I just don’t know if I should.”
“But would you?” Isabel asked.
Max looked at Liz and sighed. “Yeah, I guess I’d have to defend Liz in any dimension. I just couldn’t not protect her, you know?”
“But maybe I’m supposed to die in that other dimension, Max,” Liz said. “Then you would be changing what was supposed to be.”
“Well, that’s assuming you subscribe to the theory that something is ‘supposed’ to go a certain way,” Max said. “What if it’s all random… just what we make it? If I saw you about to be harmed here, Liz, I’d protect you. What’s the difference? If it’s right for me to intervene in this dimension can it be wrong somewhere else? If I wasn’t around and something was going to happen to you and someone from another dimension saved you, I’d be thankful! I wouldn’t question what was supposed to be, because I don’t believe in destiny.”
“Like us being together?” Liz asked.
“Well, sure, that’s… I believe in that,” Max said. But that’s a destiny that I made… that we made… together. It didn’t just happen without our help. We had to put something into it.”
“That’s true,” Liz said. “Future Max tried to change our destiny once.”
“And he screwed it up for all of us,” Alex reminded Liz… until Max and Michael fixed it.”
“But he did it,” Max said. “And we did it again… by changing it back. ’Meant to be’ and ’Destiny’ are real… but they’re what we make them. If something works out well, we say that it was meant to be. If it works out badly, we say that it wasn’t meant to be. It refers to the ‘rightness’ of something. But that doesn’t make things happen. Only we can affect our destinies.
Max looked up to see Kyle standing there.
“Max, you’ve got visitors.”
“Who is it, Kyle?”
“I think you’d better see for yourself.”
Kyle turned and motioned to someone to come in. Michael and Maria walked through the door… and there were two other people with them.
Max, Liz, Alex, Isabel, and the spaceport supervisor, Kesvyn, all stood up as the guests entered. Their mouths were open far enough that they could have been shouting, but no words seemed to come out.
“Alex Whitman and Liz… uh… Evans…” Kyle said with a wry grin, obviously loving their reactions… “I want you to meet Alex Whitman and Liz Parker.”
tbc
Coming Next: Max and Liz’s “guests,” Alex and Liz, are overwhelmed by the palace and Antar and unsure what has happened to them. Max and the others realize that there no longer is a moral argument or question about helping them. The questions now become merely when and how… and... well, what to do with another Alex and Liz.
Last edited by Island Breeze on Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Alex And Liz In Wonderland
Chapter 57
LVII
Max, Liz, Alex, Isabel, and Spaceport Director, Kesvyn had been watching the transmissions received from the lost Antarian space ship and discussing dimensional theories when Kyle walked in with a broad smile on his face. Max knew instantly that whatever Kyle had to tell them, it was probably going to be interesting, but even he could not have guessed what Kyle was grinning about.
“You’ve got visitors, Max.”
“Who is it, Kyle?”
“I think you’d better see for yourself.”
Kyle turned and motioned to someone to come in, and Michael and Maria walked through the door followed by two other people.
Max stood up, and his mouth opened, but he found himself momentarily at a loss for words. He looked at Liz, who was standing beside him… then at Alex. If Max appeared to be shocked, though, Liz and Alex’s reactions were of stunned disbelief.
“Alex Whitman and Liz… uh… Evans…” Kyle said with a wry grin, obviously loving the reactions the new arrivals had elicited from his friends… “I want you to meet Alex Whitman and Liz Parker.”
For several moments, there was only silence. The younger Liz and Alex stared in awe at the walls, the ceilings, the floors, and the decorations of the palace… then they looked at the two people standing in front of them. These people appeared to be a few years older… but there was no doubting who they were.
“Oh… Oh! I’m so sorry,” Liz Evans said, suddenly realizing that someone needed to say something. “I uh, I guess we must all seem like idiots standing here with our mouths hanging open. It’s just that… that…”
“Hello,” Liz Parker said, extending her hand politely and swallowing. Liz Evans took Liz Parker’s hand and shook it… and both smiled.
“Something tells me we’ve got a very interesting evening ahead of us,” Liz Evans said. “Why don’t you two have a seat and make yourselves… at home. We aren’t usually so unsocial. We’re just all kind of in shock right now.”
Liz Parker nodded. “Yeah, I’m right in there with you. Are you… Are you…?”
Liz Evans nodded. “Yeah… I guess I’m you. It looks like it anyway… And I presume you would be Alex Whitman,” she said, extending her hand to the younger Alex.
Still at a loss for words, Alex nodded and took her hand.
“I guess this is your, uh… doppelganger, or something,” Liz Evans said, indicating the older Alex. “This is his wife, Isabel… and this is my husband, Max… or King Zan, as he insists I call him.”
Alex looked at Max in surprise.
“She’s kidding,” Max said.
Liz giggled. “Well, he is the king… but since I’m married to him, he usually lets me just call him ‘Your Majesty,’” she said, giving the younger couple a wink.
Realizing that she was trying to break the ice and make them feel more at ease, the younger Alex and Liz seemed to relax a bit, and they smiled.
“Should I… uh… call you… King Zan or Your Majesty,” Alex asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, those will do,” Max said with a trace of a smile. Liz slapped him playfully on the arm.
“You can call him Max… and you can call me Liz. That’s Isabel and Alex over there, as I said before… and this is Kesvyn. Kesvyn’s the Director of the Spaceport… and our friend. It appears that you’ve already met Michael and Maria.
“Hi,” the younger Alex said, raising his hand. Liz Parker smiled and added a “Hi” of her own.
“Sit down,” Max said, pointing at a sofa. “That’s a royal order.”
Liz and Alex sat down together on the sofa.
“I guess the first thing we… the first thing I need to know,” Max said “…is how you got here. The second thing would be where you came from?”
“We’re not sure,” Alex said sincerely. “Liz had these orbs, and we wanted to contact Maria, because she’s been missing, and instead of contacting Maria, we wound up here.”
“Well, actually, we did find Maria,” Liz corrected, gesturing toward Michael and Maria. “We were transported to a beach where Maria was… only it wasn’t our Maria. I mean, it is Maria but… you know…”
Max and Liz Evans both nodded. “The orbs seem to have powers that we still have not discovered,” Max said. “We know they can be used for communication… and in some cases, for healing. And now, it appears that you were able to transport yourselves here to Antar with them.”
“Antar…” Alex repeated, incredulous. Hearing it still made him shake his head in disbelief. “How did we get all the way across the galaxy to some planet with an ocean that looks like… lite beer? And what are you doing here, Max?”
“I live here,” Max said. “It’s my planet.”
“Well, yeah, I know that,” Alex said. “But when we left Earth, you were missing…”
“Wait, you said that Maria was missing,” Liz said.
Alex nodded. “Well, you see, Maria, Michael, Isabel, and Max were shot by these Army sharpshooters. Liz was, too. The Army claimed the sharpshooters were drunk and acting on their own, but we never believed it.”
“When did this happen,” Liz Evans asked.
“At graduation,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans put her hand over her mouth and gasped, remembering her own premonitions and the close call she and the others had had at their own graduation.
“And the others… Are they…?”
“Supposedly dead,” Liz Parker answered.
“They were dead,” Alex insisted. “I was there. I saw them. Well, Isabel and Maria were dead anyway. Michael and Max escaped on Michael’s bike. They were shot as they escaped and were found dead at the edge of town where the bike crashed.”
“Found by the Army or FBI, I assume,” the older Alex said.
The younger Alex nodded. “There were funerals for all of them, but just the other day, Sheriff Valenti opened the graves and found out that the bodies in the coffins were dummies… made out of latex and paraffin. And Liz had a vision of Maria trying to contact her.”
“Maria?” Liz repeated, surprised, looking at Maria and Michael. Michael shrugged.
“Well,” the younger Liz said, “Maria did say something about Isabel needing to help her.”
“Why didn’t Isabel do it herself,” Liz Evans asked. “Isabel could have dreamwalked you.”
“I don’t know,” Liz Parker replied.
“I must have been injured,” Isabel said, placing herself in the place of the younger Isabel. “I’m sure that I would have dreamwalked you if I had been able to and if Maria needed help. Do you know where they were when she tried to contact you?”
Liz Parker shook her head. “I think they’re on the Army base somewhere.”
Max paled visibly. “I hope not,” he said, remembering his own experiences in the White Room.
“Alex said you were shot, too, Liz,” Isabel said. “I take it, you weren’t seriously hurt?”
“She was shot in the head and spine,” Alex answered for her. “Liz was in a coma for over four months. No one knew if she would survive. Since she came out of the coma, she’s been paralyzed.”
“Omigod! The visions Maya’s been having!” Liz Evans exclaimed. “Maya saw a young woman who looked like me in a wheelchair, and she thought she was in some kind of danger. She said that a man in a tree wanted to shoot her, but Jim Valenti cut the tree down and chased the bad man off.”
“Yeah! That really happened!” Liz Parker said. “I knew Sheriff Valenti had that chainsaw in his hand for a reason! He said that he confiscated it from some illegal loggers in the park. He’s been protecting me. He won’t say so, but I know it.”
Liz suddenly realized that, for someone who was supposedly paralyzed, she looked the picture of good health.
“Oh! Yeah, I know… I’m standing up… I really was in a wheelchair, though. I don’t know what happened. When Alex and I used the orbs and we appeared here, I wasn’t paralyzed anymore. Do you think the orbs could have healed me?”
Max nodded then slowly shook his head. “The orbs probably didn’t heal you. They teleported your essence here and reassembled you the way your DNA says that you are supposed to be assembled.”
“So… if I go back… I’ll still be paralyzed?”
“Maybe,” Max said. “Or maybe not.”
“You could heal her, Max,” Maria said.
Max nodded. “If there was anything wrong with her, I could… but there’s nothing wrong with her now. The orbs reassembled her perfectly. The question is, when she goes back, will she be reassembled according to her DNA plan or the way the orbs found her? And why didn’t the orbs reassemble her the way they found her when they brought her here? There’s a lot that we don’t know about the orbs.”
“You could check her out, Max,” the older Alex said. “Maybe you could tell something.”
Max stood up and walked over to Liz then placed his hands on her back. As he stood there, the others noticed that his face showed surprise at first, then concern. Max felt Liz’s arms then picked her wrist up and checked for the pulse. Then he picked up Alex’s wrist and checked for his pulse. Finally, Max sat back down.
“You gonna tell us what that was all about, Max?” the older Alex asked.
“What do you mean,” Max said.
“I mean that look on your face. Something wasn’t what you were expecting. Even I could see that.”
“I don’t know,” Max said, shaking his head. “I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I’m probably not qualified to speculate.”
“You’re all we’ve got, Max,” Isabel said. “Varec’s not here. Speculate!”
“What is it?” the younger Liz asked.
Max sighed. “You don’t have a pulse or a heartbeat… Neither of you do.”
Alex picked up his left hand with his right hand and felt for a pulse, then he tried to feel the pulse in the carotid artery in his neck. “There’s gotta be a pulse, Max. We wouldn’t be alive if there was no pulse. You can’t live with no heartbeat… Can you?”
“Not that I know of,” Max said.
Not finding his own pulse, Alex felt Liz’s wrist. Then he looked at Max. “Oh, sh*t! I think we’re dead!”
“You’re not dead,” Max said. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but I can vouch that you’re definitely alive… heartbeat or not.”
“How can they not have a heartbeat and still be alive,” Isabel asked. “Maybe you just couldn’t feel it, Max.”
“No, No… Wait…” Michael said, thinking. “Suppose they aren’t really here.”
“Of course they’re here,” Isabel said. “You see them. I see them. They’re sitting right there on the sofa.” Isabel touched the younger Alex and Liz on the arm and face. “They’re here,” Michael. You can’t feel a ghost. I can feel Liz and Alex. They’re as real as you and me!”
“Maybe not,” Michael said. “Well, yes and no, actually. Suppose that the orbs reassembled a duplicate set… a copy… of them here, but the original set is still on Earth.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Isabel said. “You don’t make copies of people. Human minds can barely think for one body. I don’t mean that as an insult, but humans don’t even have special powers… Their minds certainly aren’t developed enough to control two bodies at once.”
“Maybe they don’t have to,” Michael said. “Suppose their real bodies back on Earth are, like, in a coma or something, but their minds are here… sort of taking a vacation… in these other bodies.”
“Michael, you need help.” Isabel said.
“Don’t mind Michael,” she said to the younger Alex, adding with a tone of sarcasm, “He’s just swallowed too much of our ‘Lite Beer’ Sea lately! I thought it looked like the beach was getting bigger!”
“No, No, Isabel,” Max said. “It makes sense really. Think about it. The orbs could transport a DNA pattern and a memory core much more easily and efficiently than they could two whole human bodies. Michael may just have something there.”
“Uh, guys,” the younger Alex interrupted. “I hate to just butt in here, but since we’re talking about Liz and me, could somebody tell us what this all means?”
“I wish I could, Alex,” Max said. “If Michael is right, though… and we really aren’t certain about that… It’s only a theory… then your real bodies could still be on Earth, probably lying comatose where you left them, waiting for your return.”
“Yeah,” Michael said… “So enjoy these while you have them, ‘cause they may be disposables. They may just be on loan for your holiday, so use ‘em and abuse ‘em. Have some fun!”
“Michael!” Isabel exclaimed.
“Just kidding, Iz! Don’t get in a frit!”
“Talk about tiny minds,” Isabel fumed.
“Okay, I get it,” the younger Alex said, “but wouldn’t I still have to have a heartbeat… and be breathing,” he added, holding his hand under his nose.
“I would have thought so,” Max said. “But it’s possible that your bodies back on Earth are breathing and beating for you, and these bodies are… are… well, I hate to use Michael’s term, but… disposables… You know, just temporary for the time you’re here.”
“So… what happens if we’re still here when the expiration date… or the warranty… runs out?” Alex asked.
Isabel shook her head. “You see! You see what you guys did?”
“Well, it’s a reasonable question, Iz,” Michael said.
“Oh!” Isabel huffed, waving her hand. “Alex, if the orbs brought you… that is, your essences or whatever… here and created some kind of temporary bodies for them… I’m sure that when these bodies… when they… when they… you know…”
“Say it, Isabel,” Michael said, with an ‘I-told-you-so’ grin. “Say ‘expire.’”
“I was going to say, when they are no longer needed…” Isabel said. “You will be returned to your regular bodies on Earth.”
“Maybe you’re all being concerned needlessly,” Max said to Michael and Isabel as well as to the younger Alex and Liz. “I think it’s likely that the bodies you have now will last as long as they’re needed… however long that may be. The orbs aren’t limited by our conceptions or limitations. These bodies could have unlimited life spans… at least they may last as long as your real bodies on Earth still survive to support them.”
“That makes sense,” Michael said. Isabel nodded.
“These bodies have fewer moving parts,” Michael said, “so maybe they won’t wear out as fast.”
“Michael!” Isabel exclaimed, glaring at him again.
“What?”
“Okay, Liz Evans said. “If that’s out of the way, can we move on to something else here? Liz… Oh, Wow! It’s hard to address myself by my own name! I feel like I’m looking in a mirror talking to myself and somebody needs to lock me up!”
Everyone laughed.
Liz tried again. “Liz… Maya said that she saw Max in one of her visions, and he was in a box… a coffin, I think, and he fell out. Do you know what that was about?”
Liz Parker nodded. “When Sheriff Valenti wanted to open the coffins and he already had Max’s dug up, Judge Lewis showed up and blocked him with a cease and desist order, but Kyle pulled on the ropes holding the coffin up, and the coffin fell and broke open. That’s when the fake body rolled out.”
“That must be what Maya saw,” Liz Evans said.
“I had visions, too, Liz Parker said. “I saw your Golden Sea… Oh, and Alex, it’s salt water, not lite beer.”
“Damn, now you tell me… after I came all the way across the galaxy to get here!”
Everyone laughed again.
“And I know the names of all your children,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans seemed shocked by this information. “You know their names?”
Liz Parker nodded. “I thought I was seeing my own future or something and they were my children. I felt like I was right here sometimes.”
“You must have been seeing through Maya,” Liz Evans said. “Her ability to see and communicate across the universe sometimes seems to leave her open to a sort of back flow of information. Some of the Antarians Too said that they had had occasional brief flashes of Antar, too.”
“After we found out that the body in Max’s grave was a fake… and that the others were all fakes too…” Liz Parker said, “we started wondering where the real bodies were. We’re pretty sure they were taken to the Army base. I had a flash of Max calling me when I touched his ring. And later I had the vision of Maria asking for our help… so I believe that all of them could still be alive. But I think they’re in danger, and one or more of them may possibly be badly hurt. I haven’t been able to make a move without Judge Lewis showing up and trying to stop me or convince me that I should leave Roswell or that I should allow myself to be committed to an insane asylum he wants to send me to somewhere in Arizona.”
“Judge Lewis,” the older Alex mumbled. “A real friend he turned out to be!”
Kyle, standing beside Alex, nodded. “I seem to remember saying those exact words to Dad once… exactly! When Judge Lewis had Dad fired.”
“So is anyone looking for Max and Maria… and Michael and Isabel…” Liz Evans asked.
“The Sheriff has been helping all he could. And I think Amy went to the base to try to find Maria herself. When we left, she still hadn’t come back.”
Max winced. “I hope that’s not because of what my worst fears are suggesting. I know Amy. She won’t give up. They’ll have to shoot her to stop her… and they will.”
“Mom would give them a fight,” Maria said. “She wouldn’t go down easy. She may not look formidable, but you have to know Mom. She probably could take on that whole base by herself… if the right incentive was there.”
“To find you?” Isabel asked.
Maria nodded. “Yeah… to find me. I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she is,” Michael said soothingly. “We probably should be worrying more about the poor soldiers she meets up with.”
Maria laughed and nodded, but deep inside, she was worried about Amy, even knowing that this Amy was not the mother that she knew here on Antar… and that if anything happened to this Amy it would not affect her mother here in any way.
“Do you have saber tooth tigers here,” Liz Parker asked out of the blue.
Liz Evans laughed. “You saw Jim’s pawgor? That must have given you a pause!”
Liz Parker smiled. “I saw a saber tooth tiger playing with a little boy.”
“That would be Danyy,” Liz Evans said. “Danyy is Jim and Kathleen’s son. He can talk to animals.”
“Jim and Kathleen?” Liz Parker asked.
Liz Evans nodded. “Kathleen Topolsky.”
Liz Parker looked shocked. “Topolsky? Here? She’s working against us! Topolsky is FBI!”
“She was,” Liz Evans said. “She’s not anymore… ours isn’t anyway. Kathleen was betrayed by her own people and locked up and tortured for a long time after she tried to help us. They made up a story that she had been killed in a fire at an insane asylum…”
“Like Judge Lewis wants to put me in,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans shuddered involuntarily, wondering if it could be a coincidence. “Don’t let him do that,” she said to the younger Liz. “Fight it!”
Liz Parker nodded. “I always thought that the Sheriff would marry Amy DeLuca. They seemed to have a thing for each other.”
“Well, our Jim married Kathleen,” Isabel said. “And Amy married Varec, a young Antarian scientist. Both of them could not be happier. But if you’re from an alternate dimension, as we think you may be, then there’s no guarantee that things will happen the same way with your Jim and Amy. They could wind up marrying each other.”
Liz Parker smiled. “I have this feeling about that.”
A staff person came into the room and whispered to Liz Evans, and Liz nodded then stood up.
“Dinner is ready. If everyone would like to head for the dining room, we can continue this conversation there.” Turning to Max, she added, “After we eat, I’d like to take Liz to Kyyks and get her something to wear. We don’t know how long they may be here. Would you like to come, too, Alex?”
“Uh, well… yeah, sure, I guess.”
“Or I could take you out to Jim’s place to see his pawgor,” the older Alex said.
Alex brightened then looked at Liz Parker.
“No… that’s okay. I’ll stay with Liz. I probably should get another shirt and some pants so I don’t have to wear the same ones all the time. Maybe we can go see the paguar together later. We really need to get back to Earth as soon as possible, though… if we can figure out how to do that. The others still need us.”
The older Alex smiled understandingly. “It’s called a Pawgor,” he said, correcting his younger self’s pronunciation.
Max pulled out seats for Liz Parker and for his wife, and both sat down at the table.
“you’ve got to be twice the gentleman today, huh, Max,” Liz said with a smile. “It’s good for you.”
Max smiled but didn’t reply.
“This looks really good,” Alex said, looking longingly at the food on his plate and the bowls of other foods set out to choose from. “It smells good, too! For some reason, I’m really starved.”
“Me, too,” Liz agreed.
“Are your bodies made to eat,” Michael asked. “I mean, you don’t breathe or have a heartbeat. Can you… you know?”
Isabel’s head sank slowly down onto the table, and she covered her face with her hands and moaned.
Alex looked at the piece of yegg steak on his fork and slowly put it back down.
Liz seemed unsure what to do with her food. “Uh, can I be excused for a moment? I… I really need to… I think I forgot to wash my hands.”
“Right down the hall on the left,” Isabel said without raising her head. “You’ll see it.”
“Thanks,” Liz said, standing up and leaving the table.
“Michael,” Isabel mumbled under her breath, “If the end of this day arrives… and you’re still alive, it’ll be a frikkin’ miracle.”
“Well, it’s something they needed to know,” Michael said. “I wouldn’t want them to blow up like balloons and burst or something. I’d never forgive myself.”
“You need to worry more about me forgiving you, Michael. Your life in the immediate future depends on it… and right now… it’s not looking good. You’ve passed critical, you’re already on life support!”
Liz returned to the table and sat back down then looked at Alex and smiled.
“Is everything… alright,” Alex asked hesitantly.
Liz nodded and picked up her fork, taking a big bite of the grelliats on her plate. “Mmmmmm… This is soooo good!”
That was all Alex needed. He attacked the yegg steak, grelliats, and other foods on his plate like a starving man.
Isabel picked up her fork but seemed to hesitate as she decided whether it would look better sticking out of a grelliat or Michael’s back. She gave Michael a quick stare then stabbed the grelliat and put it in her mouth.
“Hey, it was better that they know now,” Michael said. “I’m only trying to look out for them.”
tbc
Coming up: Liz and Alex see the town and meet the others, and everyone tries to figure out how to get them back home again… and where to send them back to, dimensionally, since they seem to have come from an alternate dimension. They also discuss plans to assist them in finding and rescuing the others. Meanwhile, in The Night The Dreams Died, Jeff Parker discovers Liz and Alex unconscious together above the CrashDown, and Judge Lewis, learning of their condition, sees a light at the end of his tunnel, with a little intervention on his part.
Alex And Liz In Wonderland
Chapter 57
LVII
Max, Liz, Alex, Isabel, and Spaceport Director, Kesvyn had been watching the transmissions received from the lost Antarian space ship and discussing dimensional theories when Kyle walked in with a broad smile on his face. Max knew instantly that whatever Kyle had to tell them, it was probably going to be interesting, but even he could not have guessed what Kyle was grinning about.
“You’ve got visitors, Max.”
“Who is it, Kyle?”
“I think you’d better see for yourself.”
Kyle turned and motioned to someone to come in, and Michael and Maria walked through the door followed by two other people.
Max stood up, and his mouth opened, but he found himself momentarily at a loss for words. He looked at Liz, who was standing beside him… then at Alex. If Max appeared to be shocked, though, Liz and Alex’s reactions were of stunned disbelief.
“Alex Whitman and Liz… uh… Evans…” Kyle said with a wry grin, obviously loving the reactions the new arrivals had elicited from his friends… “I want you to meet Alex Whitman and Liz Parker.”
For several moments, there was only silence. The younger Liz and Alex stared in awe at the walls, the ceilings, the floors, and the decorations of the palace… then they looked at the two people standing in front of them. These people appeared to be a few years older… but there was no doubting who they were.
“Oh… Oh! I’m so sorry,” Liz Evans said, suddenly realizing that someone needed to say something. “I uh, I guess we must all seem like idiots standing here with our mouths hanging open. It’s just that… that…”
“Hello,” Liz Parker said, extending her hand politely and swallowing. Liz Evans took Liz Parker’s hand and shook it… and both smiled.
“Something tells me we’ve got a very interesting evening ahead of us,” Liz Evans said. “Why don’t you two have a seat and make yourselves… at home. We aren’t usually so unsocial. We’re just all kind of in shock right now.”
Liz Parker nodded. “Yeah, I’m right in there with you. Are you… Are you…?”
Liz Evans nodded. “Yeah… I guess I’m you. It looks like it anyway… And I presume you would be Alex Whitman,” she said, extending her hand to the younger Alex.
Still at a loss for words, Alex nodded and took her hand.
“I guess this is your, uh… doppelganger, or something,” Liz Evans said, indicating the older Alex. “This is his wife, Isabel… and this is my husband, Max… or King Zan, as he insists I call him.”
Alex looked at Max in surprise.
“She’s kidding,” Max said.
Liz giggled. “Well, he is the king… but since I’m married to him, he usually lets me just call him ‘Your Majesty,’” she said, giving the younger couple a wink.
Realizing that she was trying to break the ice and make them feel more at ease, the younger Alex and Liz seemed to relax a bit, and they smiled.
“Should I… uh… call you… King Zan or Your Majesty,” Alex asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, those will do,” Max said with a trace of a smile. Liz slapped him playfully on the arm.
“You can call him Max… and you can call me Liz. That’s Isabel and Alex over there, as I said before… and this is Kesvyn. Kesvyn’s the Director of the Spaceport… and our friend. It appears that you’ve already met Michael and Maria.
“Hi,” the younger Alex said, raising his hand. Liz Parker smiled and added a “Hi” of her own.
“Sit down,” Max said, pointing at a sofa. “That’s a royal order.”
Liz and Alex sat down together on the sofa.
“I guess the first thing we… the first thing I need to know,” Max said “…is how you got here. The second thing would be where you came from?”
“We’re not sure,” Alex said sincerely. “Liz had these orbs, and we wanted to contact Maria, because she’s been missing, and instead of contacting Maria, we wound up here.”
“Well, actually, we did find Maria,” Liz corrected, gesturing toward Michael and Maria. “We were transported to a beach where Maria was… only it wasn’t our Maria. I mean, it is Maria but… you know…”
Max and Liz Evans both nodded. “The orbs seem to have powers that we still have not discovered,” Max said. “We know they can be used for communication… and in some cases, for healing. And now, it appears that you were able to transport yourselves here to Antar with them.”
“Antar…” Alex repeated, incredulous. Hearing it still made him shake his head in disbelief. “How did we get all the way across the galaxy to some planet with an ocean that looks like… lite beer? And what are you doing here, Max?”
“I live here,” Max said. “It’s my planet.”
“Well, yeah, I know that,” Alex said. “But when we left Earth, you were missing…”
“Wait, you said that Maria was missing,” Liz said.
Alex nodded. “Well, you see, Maria, Michael, Isabel, and Max were shot by these Army sharpshooters. Liz was, too. The Army claimed the sharpshooters were drunk and acting on their own, but we never believed it.”
“When did this happen,” Liz Evans asked.
“At graduation,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans put her hand over her mouth and gasped, remembering her own premonitions and the close call she and the others had had at their own graduation.
“And the others… Are they…?”
“Supposedly dead,” Liz Parker answered.
“They were dead,” Alex insisted. “I was there. I saw them. Well, Isabel and Maria were dead anyway. Michael and Max escaped on Michael’s bike. They were shot as they escaped and were found dead at the edge of town where the bike crashed.”
“Found by the Army or FBI, I assume,” the older Alex said.
The younger Alex nodded. “There were funerals for all of them, but just the other day, Sheriff Valenti opened the graves and found out that the bodies in the coffins were dummies… made out of latex and paraffin. And Liz had a vision of Maria trying to contact her.”
“Maria?” Liz repeated, surprised, looking at Maria and Michael. Michael shrugged.
“Well,” the younger Liz said, “Maria did say something about Isabel needing to help her.”
“Why didn’t Isabel do it herself,” Liz Evans asked. “Isabel could have dreamwalked you.”
“I don’t know,” Liz Parker replied.
“I must have been injured,” Isabel said, placing herself in the place of the younger Isabel. “I’m sure that I would have dreamwalked you if I had been able to and if Maria needed help. Do you know where they were when she tried to contact you?”
Liz Parker shook her head. “I think they’re on the Army base somewhere.”
Max paled visibly. “I hope not,” he said, remembering his own experiences in the White Room.
“Alex said you were shot, too, Liz,” Isabel said. “I take it, you weren’t seriously hurt?”
“She was shot in the head and spine,” Alex answered for her. “Liz was in a coma for over four months. No one knew if she would survive. Since she came out of the coma, she’s been paralyzed.”
“Omigod! The visions Maya’s been having!” Liz Evans exclaimed. “Maya saw a young woman who looked like me in a wheelchair, and she thought she was in some kind of danger. She said that a man in a tree wanted to shoot her, but Jim Valenti cut the tree down and chased the bad man off.”
“Yeah! That really happened!” Liz Parker said. “I knew Sheriff Valenti had that chainsaw in his hand for a reason! He said that he confiscated it from some illegal loggers in the park. He’s been protecting me. He won’t say so, but I know it.”
Liz suddenly realized that, for someone who was supposedly paralyzed, she looked the picture of good health.
“Oh! Yeah, I know… I’m standing up… I really was in a wheelchair, though. I don’t know what happened. When Alex and I used the orbs and we appeared here, I wasn’t paralyzed anymore. Do you think the orbs could have healed me?”
Max nodded then slowly shook his head. “The orbs probably didn’t heal you. They teleported your essence here and reassembled you the way your DNA says that you are supposed to be assembled.”
“So… if I go back… I’ll still be paralyzed?”
“Maybe,” Max said. “Or maybe not.”
“You could heal her, Max,” Maria said.
Max nodded. “If there was anything wrong with her, I could… but there’s nothing wrong with her now. The orbs reassembled her perfectly. The question is, when she goes back, will she be reassembled according to her DNA plan or the way the orbs found her? And why didn’t the orbs reassemble her the way they found her when they brought her here? There’s a lot that we don’t know about the orbs.”
“You could check her out, Max,” the older Alex said. “Maybe you could tell something.”
Max stood up and walked over to Liz then placed his hands on her back. As he stood there, the others noticed that his face showed surprise at first, then concern. Max felt Liz’s arms then picked her wrist up and checked for the pulse. Then he picked up Alex’s wrist and checked for his pulse. Finally, Max sat back down.
“You gonna tell us what that was all about, Max?” the older Alex asked.
“What do you mean,” Max said.
“I mean that look on your face. Something wasn’t what you were expecting. Even I could see that.”
“I don’t know,” Max said, shaking his head. “I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I’m probably not qualified to speculate.”
“You’re all we’ve got, Max,” Isabel said. “Varec’s not here. Speculate!”
“What is it?” the younger Liz asked.
Max sighed. “You don’t have a pulse or a heartbeat… Neither of you do.”
Alex picked up his left hand with his right hand and felt for a pulse, then he tried to feel the pulse in the carotid artery in his neck. “There’s gotta be a pulse, Max. We wouldn’t be alive if there was no pulse. You can’t live with no heartbeat… Can you?”
“Not that I know of,” Max said.
Not finding his own pulse, Alex felt Liz’s wrist. Then he looked at Max. “Oh, sh*t! I think we’re dead!”
“You’re not dead,” Max said. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but I can vouch that you’re definitely alive… heartbeat or not.”
“How can they not have a heartbeat and still be alive,” Isabel asked. “Maybe you just couldn’t feel it, Max.”
“No, No… Wait…” Michael said, thinking. “Suppose they aren’t really here.”
“Of course they’re here,” Isabel said. “You see them. I see them. They’re sitting right there on the sofa.” Isabel touched the younger Alex and Liz on the arm and face. “They’re here,” Michael. You can’t feel a ghost. I can feel Liz and Alex. They’re as real as you and me!”
“Maybe not,” Michael said. “Well, yes and no, actually. Suppose that the orbs reassembled a duplicate set… a copy… of them here, but the original set is still on Earth.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Isabel said. “You don’t make copies of people. Human minds can barely think for one body. I don’t mean that as an insult, but humans don’t even have special powers… Their minds certainly aren’t developed enough to control two bodies at once.”
“Maybe they don’t have to,” Michael said. “Suppose their real bodies back on Earth are, like, in a coma or something, but their minds are here… sort of taking a vacation… in these other bodies.”
“Michael, you need help.” Isabel said.
“Don’t mind Michael,” she said to the younger Alex, adding with a tone of sarcasm, “He’s just swallowed too much of our ‘Lite Beer’ Sea lately! I thought it looked like the beach was getting bigger!”
“No, No, Isabel,” Max said. “It makes sense really. Think about it. The orbs could transport a DNA pattern and a memory core much more easily and efficiently than they could two whole human bodies. Michael may just have something there.”
“Uh, guys,” the younger Alex interrupted. “I hate to just butt in here, but since we’re talking about Liz and me, could somebody tell us what this all means?”
“I wish I could, Alex,” Max said. “If Michael is right, though… and we really aren’t certain about that… It’s only a theory… then your real bodies could still be on Earth, probably lying comatose where you left them, waiting for your return.”
“Yeah,” Michael said… “So enjoy these while you have them, ‘cause they may be disposables. They may just be on loan for your holiday, so use ‘em and abuse ‘em. Have some fun!”
“Michael!” Isabel exclaimed.
“Just kidding, Iz! Don’t get in a frit!”
“Talk about tiny minds,” Isabel fumed.
“Okay, I get it,” the younger Alex said, “but wouldn’t I still have to have a heartbeat… and be breathing,” he added, holding his hand under his nose.
“I would have thought so,” Max said. “But it’s possible that your bodies back on Earth are breathing and beating for you, and these bodies are… are… well, I hate to use Michael’s term, but… disposables… You know, just temporary for the time you’re here.”
“So… what happens if we’re still here when the expiration date… or the warranty… runs out?” Alex asked.
Isabel shook her head. “You see! You see what you guys did?”
“Well, it’s a reasonable question, Iz,” Michael said.
“Oh!” Isabel huffed, waving her hand. “Alex, if the orbs brought you… that is, your essences or whatever… here and created some kind of temporary bodies for them… I’m sure that when these bodies… when they… when they… you know…”
“Say it, Isabel,” Michael said, with an ‘I-told-you-so’ grin. “Say ‘expire.’”
“I was going to say, when they are no longer needed…” Isabel said. “You will be returned to your regular bodies on Earth.”
“Maybe you’re all being concerned needlessly,” Max said to Michael and Isabel as well as to the younger Alex and Liz. “I think it’s likely that the bodies you have now will last as long as they’re needed… however long that may be. The orbs aren’t limited by our conceptions or limitations. These bodies could have unlimited life spans… at least they may last as long as your real bodies on Earth still survive to support them.”
“That makes sense,” Michael said. Isabel nodded.
“These bodies have fewer moving parts,” Michael said, “so maybe they won’t wear out as fast.”
“Michael!” Isabel exclaimed, glaring at him again.
“What?”
“Okay, Liz Evans said. “If that’s out of the way, can we move on to something else here? Liz… Oh, Wow! It’s hard to address myself by my own name! I feel like I’m looking in a mirror talking to myself and somebody needs to lock me up!”
Everyone laughed.
Liz tried again. “Liz… Maya said that she saw Max in one of her visions, and he was in a box… a coffin, I think, and he fell out. Do you know what that was about?”
Liz Parker nodded. “When Sheriff Valenti wanted to open the coffins and he already had Max’s dug up, Judge Lewis showed up and blocked him with a cease and desist order, but Kyle pulled on the ropes holding the coffin up, and the coffin fell and broke open. That’s when the fake body rolled out.”
“That must be what Maya saw,” Liz Evans said.
“I had visions, too, Liz Parker said. “I saw your Golden Sea… Oh, and Alex, it’s salt water, not lite beer.”
“Damn, now you tell me… after I came all the way across the galaxy to get here!”
Everyone laughed again.
“And I know the names of all your children,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans seemed shocked by this information. “You know their names?”
Liz Parker nodded. “I thought I was seeing my own future or something and they were my children. I felt like I was right here sometimes.”
“You must have been seeing through Maya,” Liz Evans said. “Her ability to see and communicate across the universe sometimes seems to leave her open to a sort of back flow of information. Some of the Antarians Too said that they had had occasional brief flashes of Antar, too.”
“After we found out that the body in Max’s grave was a fake… and that the others were all fakes too…” Liz Parker said, “we started wondering where the real bodies were. We’re pretty sure they were taken to the Army base. I had a flash of Max calling me when I touched his ring. And later I had the vision of Maria asking for our help… so I believe that all of them could still be alive. But I think they’re in danger, and one or more of them may possibly be badly hurt. I haven’t been able to make a move without Judge Lewis showing up and trying to stop me or convince me that I should leave Roswell or that I should allow myself to be committed to an insane asylum he wants to send me to somewhere in Arizona.”
“Judge Lewis,” the older Alex mumbled. “A real friend he turned out to be!”
Kyle, standing beside Alex, nodded. “I seem to remember saying those exact words to Dad once… exactly! When Judge Lewis had Dad fired.”
“So is anyone looking for Max and Maria… and Michael and Isabel…” Liz Evans asked.
“The Sheriff has been helping all he could. And I think Amy went to the base to try to find Maria herself. When we left, she still hadn’t come back.”
Max winced. “I hope that’s not because of what my worst fears are suggesting. I know Amy. She won’t give up. They’ll have to shoot her to stop her… and they will.”
“Mom would give them a fight,” Maria said. “She wouldn’t go down easy. She may not look formidable, but you have to know Mom. She probably could take on that whole base by herself… if the right incentive was there.”
“To find you?” Isabel asked.
Maria nodded. “Yeah… to find me. I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she is,” Michael said soothingly. “We probably should be worrying more about the poor soldiers she meets up with.”
Maria laughed and nodded, but deep inside, she was worried about Amy, even knowing that this Amy was not the mother that she knew here on Antar… and that if anything happened to this Amy it would not affect her mother here in any way.
“Do you have saber tooth tigers here,” Liz Parker asked out of the blue.
Liz Evans laughed. “You saw Jim’s pawgor? That must have given you a pause!”
Liz Parker smiled. “I saw a saber tooth tiger playing with a little boy.”
“That would be Danyy,” Liz Evans said. “Danyy is Jim and Kathleen’s son. He can talk to animals.”
“Jim and Kathleen?” Liz Parker asked.
Liz Evans nodded. “Kathleen Topolsky.”
Liz Parker looked shocked. “Topolsky? Here? She’s working against us! Topolsky is FBI!”
“She was,” Liz Evans said. “She’s not anymore… ours isn’t anyway. Kathleen was betrayed by her own people and locked up and tortured for a long time after she tried to help us. They made up a story that she had been killed in a fire at an insane asylum…”
“Like Judge Lewis wants to put me in,” Liz Parker said.
Liz Evans shuddered involuntarily, wondering if it could be a coincidence. “Don’t let him do that,” she said to the younger Liz. “Fight it!”
Liz Parker nodded. “I always thought that the Sheriff would marry Amy DeLuca. They seemed to have a thing for each other.”
“Well, our Jim married Kathleen,” Isabel said. “And Amy married Varec, a young Antarian scientist. Both of them could not be happier. But if you’re from an alternate dimension, as we think you may be, then there’s no guarantee that things will happen the same way with your Jim and Amy. They could wind up marrying each other.”
Liz Parker smiled. “I have this feeling about that.”
A staff person came into the room and whispered to Liz Evans, and Liz nodded then stood up.
“Dinner is ready. If everyone would like to head for the dining room, we can continue this conversation there.” Turning to Max, she added, “After we eat, I’d like to take Liz to Kyyks and get her something to wear. We don’t know how long they may be here. Would you like to come, too, Alex?”
“Uh, well… yeah, sure, I guess.”
“Or I could take you out to Jim’s place to see his pawgor,” the older Alex said.
Alex brightened then looked at Liz Parker.
“No… that’s okay. I’ll stay with Liz. I probably should get another shirt and some pants so I don’t have to wear the same ones all the time. Maybe we can go see the paguar together later. We really need to get back to Earth as soon as possible, though… if we can figure out how to do that. The others still need us.”
The older Alex smiled understandingly. “It’s called a Pawgor,” he said, correcting his younger self’s pronunciation.
Max pulled out seats for Liz Parker and for his wife, and both sat down at the table.
“you’ve got to be twice the gentleman today, huh, Max,” Liz said with a smile. “It’s good for you.”
Max smiled but didn’t reply.
“This looks really good,” Alex said, looking longingly at the food on his plate and the bowls of other foods set out to choose from. “It smells good, too! For some reason, I’m really starved.”
“Me, too,” Liz agreed.
“Are your bodies made to eat,” Michael asked. “I mean, you don’t breathe or have a heartbeat. Can you… you know?”
Isabel’s head sank slowly down onto the table, and she covered her face with her hands and moaned.
Alex looked at the piece of yegg steak on his fork and slowly put it back down.
Liz seemed unsure what to do with her food. “Uh, can I be excused for a moment? I… I really need to… I think I forgot to wash my hands.”
“Right down the hall on the left,” Isabel said without raising her head. “You’ll see it.”
“Thanks,” Liz said, standing up and leaving the table.
“Michael,” Isabel mumbled under her breath, “If the end of this day arrives… and you’re still alive, it’ll be a frikkin’ miracle.”
“Well, it’s something they needed to know,” Michael said. “I wouldn’t want them to blow up like balloons and burst or something. I’d never forgive myself.”
“You need to worry more about me forgiving you, Michael. Your life in the immediate future depends on it… and right now… it’s not looking good. You’ve passed critical, you’re already on life support!”
Liz returned to the table and sat back down then looked at Alex and smiled.
“Is everything… alright,” Alex asked hesitantly.
Liz nodded and picked up her fork, taking a big bite of the grelliats on her plate. “Mmmmmm… This is soooo good!”
That was all Alex needed. He attacked the yegg steak, grelliats, and other foods on his plate like a starving man.
Isabel picked up her fork but seemed to hesitate as she decided whether it would look better sticking out of a grelliat or Michael’s back. She gave Michael a quick stare then stabbed the grelliat and put it in her mouth.
“Hey, it was better that they know now,” Michael said. “I’m only trying to look out for them.”
tbc
Coming up: Liz and Alex see the town and meet the others, and everyone tries to figure out how to get them back home again… and where to send them back to, dimensionally, since they seem to have come from an alternate dimension. They also discuss plans to assist them in finding and rescuing the others. Meanwhile, in The Night The Dreams Died, Jeff Parker discovers Liz and Alex unconscious together above the CrashDown, and Judge Lewis, learning of their condition, sees a light at the end of his tunnel, with a little intervention on his part.
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Way Way Way Over The Rainbow
Chapter 58
LVIII
Liz and Alex stared at the “car,” a royal blue Fan-Ji IV…
“I don’t hear the motor or anything,” Liz said, shaking her head in amazement. “How is it just staying there like that in the air?”
Max smiled. Liz knew that she was looking at some kind of hover car or anti-gravity vehicle, but she couldn’t figure out what made it stay where it was without any noisy fans or anything underneath to lift it off the ground… or any sound of a motor at all as far as she could tell. Yet there it was… about fifteen inches off the ground… not moving at all, as though it were perfectly normal for it to just be parked there like that in the air.
“Where’s the door handle,” Alex asked, running his hand appreciatively over the side of the car.
Max pressed his hand to the door just below the window, and a handprint appeared briefly, then the top of the car, “doors” and all, floated back.
“Awesome,” Alex said. “Could I do it, or are you the only one who can open it?”
“It’s programmed to my DNA,” Max said, “but it’ll respond to anyone I program it to recognize.”
“Awesome,” Alex repeated. “I don’t guess I could take one of these back with me? I love this car…”
Max smiled. “It might be hard to explain.”
“I know,” Alex acknowledged ruefully, “but it sure would be fun to drive back to college in one of these.”
Max helped Liz Parker and his wife into the car, though clearly there was no need other than mere chivalry. All they had to do was step in and sit down. Even the seat restraints were automatic. Alex stepped into the back with Liz Parker, and Max sat down in the driver’s seat then waved his hand over a sensor on the dash. The car seemed to rise upward gently and rotate to the left as Max turned the steering wheel. Then it moved forward smoothly. It felt oddly like an Earth car, except that it was floating on air, so there were no bumps, no road noises… just the sound of the wind… until Max pressed a button, closing the side ports… small vents in the lower part of the windows. Then there was only silence, as the scenery whisked by.
Suddenly, Liz and Alex’s seats, which were individually controlled, both tilted back slightly.
“What happened,” Alex asked. “Did I do that?”
Max grinned. “No, I did it. You can control them yourselves, though.”
Alex moved his hand around under the seat but found no control levers or buttons.
“Lift your hand,” Max said. “Point at the back of the seat in front of you.”
Alex did, and a set of sensors appeared in the air in front of him. They were there… yet not there… at least not in the sense that they could actually be felt, physically. The entire panel was something that Alex could only describe as “virtual reality.” He pushed at a sensor button, but his finger went through the panel, and nothing happened.
“Try again,” Max said. “Just touch it… Don’t stick your finger through it.”
Alex “touched” the sensor on the virtual touch pad with his fingertip, and his seat resumed an upright position. Then he leaned the seat back again.
“Cool! Awesome!” What does this one do?” Alex pointed at another sensor on the virtual touch pad.
“In the lower right corner? That’s the eject button,” Max said. “That’s in case the car goes crazy and takes off headed for the stars with everyone in it… You push that button and it throws you out of the car through the roof.”
Alex looked at Max for any sign that he was joking. Max didn’t have a trace of a smile or a grin.
“Really?” Alex asked, removing his finger carefully. Max smiled.
“Max, you’re no different in any dimension!” Alex pressed the sensor, and music began to waft out from the virtual console. Then he lowered his hand, and the virtual console disappeared, but the music continued.
“Not bad,” Alex said. “I kind of like it.” Liz, sitting next to him, looked at him quizzically.
“The music, I mean.”
“What music,” Liz asked.
“The music that I just turned on. Don’t you hear it?”
Liz shook her head.
“It’s audible only to you, Alex,” Liz Evans said from the front. “The controls allow you to make it audible to everyone if you wish, but their controls allow them to override it if they choose not to listen to it or prefer to listen to something else.”
“Mom and Dad would have loved that!” Alex said. He leaned his seat back again and watched the scenery go by.
“It looks a lot like Earth,” he said after several minutes had passed. “I mean, you have trees and bushes and lakes and… and even horses.”
Liz Evans nodded. “Our horses are a little different when you see them up close, though.”
“Well, they look just like regular horses running out there in the pasture… and they gallop like real horses… What? Do they fly or something?”
Liz laughed. “No… not that we know of. They just come with some unusual colors and markings… and they’ve got this little thing on their heads like a budding unicorn’s horn. It’s not obvious from a distance. The Antarians call them yoriths… the horses, I mean.”
“They run fast,” Liz Parker said. Liz Evans nodded. “Wait’ll you see Jim’s pawgor run… and jump! It’s incredible.”
“That’s the saber-tooth tiger I saw playing with the little boy… Danyy, isn’t it,” the younger Liz said.
Alex looked surprised. “So then you, uh… you weren’t just kidding about that before? Liz shook her head.
“Oh… um… okay…” Alex said softly.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s exactly a saber-tooth tiger,” Liz Evans said, “like the ones on Earth in prehistoric times. But it looks just like all the pictures I’ve ever seen of one… so that’s what we call it… other than a pawgor I mean. That’s what it really is, of course… a pawgor.”
Liz watched the scenery distractedly for several moments, then she looked back at Alex. “We should really be trying to get back home, Alex… Max and Michael and Maria and Isabel are still lost, and I need to find them… and I don’t know what will happen when Mom and Dad find us together in the den.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Alex said. “You don’t think your Dad will think… I mean… We were both sitting up, right? He won’t think… you know…?”
“I’m sure he’ll forgive you, Alex.”
Alex swallowed.
“After he throws you out the window,” Liz added with a slight smile.
“See… that’s what I’m afraid of,” Alex said. “Your apartment’s upstairs… and I don’t bounce very well.”
Liz smiled. “Dad would know something was wrong, Alex. You don’t need to worry about him throwing you out the window. I’m worried about what he’ll think, though, when neither one of us wakes up.”
Alex looked at her and nodded, understanding fully the implications of what Liz was saying.
“Well, I’ve got Varec researching the history of the orbs now,” Max said. “He’s the best scientist on Antar. If the information is available anywhere, he’ll find out what you need to do to get back. We have our own set of orbs here, but Varec was concerned about sending you back with ours, since yours were from another dimension or something. We don’t want to send you back where you don’t belong and have you lost… interdimensionally or something… like those guys on Sliders on TV back on Earth.”
“That could really happen?” Alex asked.
“You’re here,” Max said. “It seems you’ve proved it.”
“So… how are we going to get back?” Alex asked. “We kind of left our orbs behind when we came here.”
“That’s what Varec is trying to find out,” Max said. “There has to be a way to do it. Varec and I both feel certain of that. It’s just a matter of knowing what it is. When we know, we’ll tell you and help you get back… but for now, all you can do is relax and enjoy your time here… however long or short it might be.”
“I’m enjoying being here and seeing everything…” Liz said. “but I feel guilty… like I shouldn’t be here when I need to be helping them… They could be hurt.”
“You were paralyzed before you came here, weren’t you, Liz?” Liz Evans asked.
Liz Parker nodded.
“How were you going to help them if you were paralyzed?”
“I was getting better,” Liz said. “I exercised… as much as I could… for therapy. Vera helped me. That’s my nurse. I just need to be there. I don’t know what I can do, but I need to be there to try. Can you understand?”
Liz Evans turned around and looked at her younger self and nodded. “Yeah. I can understand.”
Max brought the car to a stop beside a tight parking space between two other cars. “This is our oldest and best still-standing department store right here, guys. It’s called ‘Kyyks.’” Max turned the steering wheel to the right while depressing a small button on the center console bar, and the car floated sideways into the parking space and stopped.
“That was too cool,” Alex said. “How many years are we behind you on Earth?”
“You mean how long till you can buy one of these?” Max asked.
“Yeah.”
“Earth civilization is about 28,000 years younger than Antarian civilization.”
“I don’t think I can wait that long,” Alex said.
Max grinned. “That doesn’t mean it will take that long on Earth. Antar had different priorities along the way. You could have something like this in the next… hundred years or so.”
“Oh, just a hundred? No problem then,” Alex said, looking downcast in spite of his grin. “I’ll just put it on my Christmas list for the year 2,114.”
“Sorry, Alex,” Max said. Max waved his hand over the console, and the top and doors floated back and the seat restraints unlocked. “Everyone who’s going in, follow Liz. She lives here when she’s not in the palace,” Max said with a wry grin.
Liz smiled sheepishly. “I don’t always buy something. I just like to shop. Besides, you’ve been over to that new hover car dealer with all the new alien vehicles more times lately than I’ve been here.”
Max nodded. “She’s right. It’s my downfall. The Fan-Ji IV is an Antarian car, but alien vehicles are becoming all the rage at the moment here on Antar. There are some very unusual vehicles out there… built by creatures whose physiology is radically different than ours in some cases… creatures who have radically different concepts of what transportation should be like. It’s kind of awesome to see some of them up close and test drive them.”
“I can imagine,” Alex said.
Liz laughed. “Wait’ll you’ve seen some of them, Alex! I’m not sure that you can imagine! At least Antarian cars look pretty much like Earth cars, even if they are futuristic by Earth standards.”
As they turned to go in, a long, strange-looking vehicle pulled up alongside Max’s Fan-Ji IV. Easily three times as long as Max’s car, this new vehicle had large flaps that stuck out on the lower sides. They probably had something to do with the hovering system or with stabilizing the car, but they made it look like a giant translucent stingray –the fish kind- with windows on the top, swimming down the road.
“Good luck finding a place to park that!” Alex laughed.
As he watched, a man, and then a woman, exited the vehicle. Then the vehicle disappeared suddenly in a bright flash of light.
“Where did it go,” Alex asked.’’
“Watch,” Max replied. The man leaned over and picked up something tiny at his feet and put it into his pocket.
“When he comes back out and presses the button, the car will become normal size again,” Max said.
“Well, I hope he doesn’t accidentally press the button while he’s got the car in his pocket…” Alex scoffed… “especially when he’s on the escalator or something. That would be interesting. It’s so tiny. What if he can’t find it after he shrinks it… or someone steps on it before he can pick it up? It looks more like a flattened plastic submarine… or some kind of freaky, ground-hugging flying saucer with a limo attached to the back! Who would make a car like that?”
Max smiled. “The Archedians would. And it’s not plastic. They call it neopseudobiological stressed metallic alloy. You think it looks odd outside… You should see it inside!”
Alex shook his head. “No thanks. The only thing I can imagine worse than accidentally pressing the button when that car’s in my pocket would be accidentally shrinking it with me still in it. I don’t feel like swimming in a bowl of milk with my arm through a cheerio or using ant transportation until someone finds me with a magnifying glass and picks me up with a pair of tweezers, thank you.”
Liz Parker giggled, and her Antarian counterpart smiled.
“What does the guy that owns it say in the morning,” Alex continued. “Honey, I can’t find the car. Do you remember which coat I left it in? By the way… Where’s our kid? Was that him I saw swimming in my froot loops this morning?”
Both Lizzes laughed.
Max smiled. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
“Honest, Dear,” Alex continued, faking a female voice as they walked into the store, “I swear I didn’t know the car was in the pocket when I put your pants in the washer.”
Both Lizzes were laughing out loud now, and Max was shaking his head.
“Maybe if I use the hair dryer on it…” Alex added apologetically, using his most contrite female voice.
“Don’t encourage him,” Max said, smiling too, in spite of himself. “You wouldn’t want to be responsible for him running away and becoming a circus clown.”
“You’re just jealous,” Alex said, “because I can make girls laugh without dropping my pants.”
Liz’s mouth fell open, and she glanced at her Antarian counterpart, who was smiling slightly but appeared shocked, too. Max looked at Alex…
“Alex… You’re the same in any dimension.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Alex said.
“Go easy, Alex,” Liz Parker whispered to him. “He is the king here… He could have you locked up… or executed… or something.”
Alex smiled. “He’s just Max… king or no king. He’s still Max.”
Max took out his communicator and punched a number. “Jarto’h, how long would it take to prepare the gallows for an afternoon execution? Four hours? Can you make it three? Good.” Max put the device back into his pocket.
“He’s kidding,” Alex said confidently. “You were kidding… right, Max?”
Max didn’t answer.
“I’m sure he was kidding,” Alex said. “Max wouldn’t… I mean… I know he’s not our Max, but he’s still… How different can he be just because he’s from another dimension… and a king here?”
Max remained silent. Alex seemed unusually quiet for a few minutes, then he shrugged.
“I was just kidding, you know, Max… about the… you know… I don’t know where that came from. It was just a joke.”
“Liz,” Max said, “why don’t you and… uh, you and Liz… go check out the ladies things, and I’ll take care of Alex. I’ll meet you here in, say, two hours?”
Alex swallowed. Liz nodded and smiled then turned to lead her unsure younger counterpart off toward another section of the store. Max motioned for Alex to follow.
“I know what you’re doing, Alex?”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“What am I doing?”
Max smiled. “Liz was shot, paralyzed… and condemned unfairly to live her life in a wheelchair. She’s had every reason to be emotionally destroyed, every reason to give up on life… to give up on happiness. You’ve been keeping her spirits up… keeping her laughing… giving her a friend to lean on.”
Alex shrugged. “Yeah… well, I just do it… I don’t think about it, but… I just wanted to… yeah… I guess you’re right. I have been trying to make her laugh. I just want her to be happy, Max. So does Kyle… and Kyle’s Dad… Sheriff Valenti… and her Mom and Dad. I guess I can try to tone the joking down if you…”
Max shook his head. “Don’t even think about doing that! The two of you may be from another dimension… and she may be younger than my Liz… but she’s still Liz. And I still love her, Alex. Make her laugh! All you can! You’ve got something that puts her at ease and makes her happy… a natural sense of humor and compassion… Like I said, you really are a lot like our Alex… I guess you really are the same in any dimension… Anyway, I just wanted you to know… I appreciate what you’re doing. And I wanted to thank you… for my counterpart down there… wherever he is… and… and… for me, too.” Max looked at Alex, and Alex thought he saw a glint of moisture in Max’s eyes.
“You’re not going to execute me, then?”
Max grinned slowly. “Oh, I didn’t say that. What’s an afternoon without a good execution? But if you keep Liz smiling and laughing, I guess I’d be obliged to pardon you.”
“I’ll give it my usual superior effort, your highness,” Alex replied with an understanding smile.
“I’m sure you will,” Max said. “I don’t know if I can take it… But it makes Liz laugh, so don’t ever stop! …You want to play some pinball?”
“You’ve got that up here?”
Max nodded. “Well, it’s the Antarian version, but it’s pretty much the same idea as Earth pinball… sort of.”
“Yeah, okay, sure! But I thought we were supposed to be shopping for clothes.”
“What for,” Max asked.
“Well… to wear, I guess.”
“No need. When we see the girls, they’ll want us to come check out some shirts and things that they saw that they thought would look great on us. We go with them and try them on. Voila! We found what we came for. We just buy what they like. Saves us having to make a lot of choices.”
“I think I see why you wore that same brown sweater all the time back on Earth, Max.”
“We’ve still got time for an execution this afternoon.”
“Pinball sounds good.”
**********
In the ladies wear department, Liz Parker picked up a rather pretty blouse and held it up. It had an oddly exotic look, but it could pass for Earth wear. Most of the clothes she saw here could, though there were a few that probably would raise some eyebrows and bring unwanted questions.
“When we go back, will we be able to take anything with us?”
Liz Evans thought a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t know why not, though. You came here with what you had on.”
“But we had the orbs in our hands… and they stayed there.”
“Yeah, that’s true… Maybe they’re made to… I don’t know. We’ll just have to find out, I guess, won’t we?”
Liz Parker smiled. “I’d really love to take some of these back, but I know some of them would be hard to explain. People would want to know who the designer was, and what would I tell them?”
“Give them a name… any Antarian name. They’ll probably say they’ve heard of him.”
Liz laughed. “You’re right. They probably would. Some of our designers on Earth are a little out of the world anyway! You know… I’m really glad I came here. I haven’t really been out shopping since… since… well, you know… what happened to me.”
Liz Evans nodded.
“And it would be hard to really enjoy myself shopping in a wheelchair… not the way I’m enjoying myself right now, being here with you… walking and all.”
“I know,” Liz Evans said, smiling. “I’m glad you came here, too. Maybe we can find a way to help you find Max and the others when you go back.”
“Oh, I hope so,” the younger Liz said. “That would be like… a dream come true! Max is… well… the first guy… the only guy really… I ever really loved. I’m crazy about Kyle and Alex, but I love Max. Can you understand?”
“Look who you’re talking to,” Liz Evans said. “Yeah, I understand.”
“I hope your Max and my Alex are having fun shopping,” Liz Parker said.
“Oh, they’re playing pinball,” Liz Evans said, “or video games one… in the arcade.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m married to him… I know a lot of things he doesn’t know I know.” Liz smiled. “They’ll show up and expect us to show them some great-looking clothes we found for them, they’ll buy them, and they’ll pretend they were shopping the whole time.”
“You don’t mind?”
Liz Evans smiled. “Why should I mind? I know he’ll be well-dressed.”
Liz Parker laughed. “Good point! But I can’t believe they would try to make us think they were shopping while they were really somewhere else… having fun.”
“Well, we’re having fun,” Liz Evans said.
“Well, yeah, I know, but guys aren’t supposed to have fun shopping.”
“I guess that’s why they’re in the video arcade.”
“I guess so… but you know… if they tell us they were shopping, I think I’d like to play a little joke on them.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Liz Parker whispered to her Antarian counterpart, and Liz Evans smiled. “It sounds like something Alex might appreciate… a few years from now.” She nodded. “I like it.”
**********
After playing various Antarian video games in the arcade, Max looked at the time and patted Alex on the back.
“Ten minutes till we’re supposed to meet the girls. We better not be late. They may come looking for us.”
“You live a dangerous life, Max.”
Max smiled. “Some of us thrive on danger, Alex. It’s the daredevil in us.”
“Or maybe just the devil.” Alex grinned.
“What was that?”
Alex shook his head. “Nothing.”
As Max and Alex walked back toward the place where they had left Liz and her younger counterpart, they saw that the girls were already there.
“There they are, Alex. Remember what I told you.”
Alex nodded.
“How’d you guys do,” Liz Parker asked. “I don’t see any packages.”
“We didn’t find anything we liked,” Max said, only half lying.
“Well,” Liz Evans said, “We saw some things that would look great for both of you! Why don’t you come take a look! Try them on!”
Max looked at Alex and smiled. Alex shook his head. “You da man, Max. You called it,” he said quietly.
Max grinned. “Okay, we’ll look. I hope they’re better than what we looked at.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that,” Liz Evans said. She took Max by the hand and led him to the men’s department.
“Close your eyes… both of you. We want it to be a surprise. You’re gonna love it!”
Max looked at Alex and shrugged, then both of them closed their eyes. Liz Evans unbuttoned Max’s shirt and took it off, and her younger counterpart unbuttoned and removed Alex’s shirt. Then they both worked quickly to put another shirt on each one. Max felt Liz put something on his head and something around his neck. He wondered about it, ties being unusual apparel on Antar, but then he figured that it must be an Antarian dress collar. Liz Parker put a hat on Alex’s head and told him to sit down. Then she slipped something on over his pants.
“Okay, guys, you can look now,” Liz Evans said. “What do you think?”
“It looks great,” Max said, automatically, as he opened his eyes. Then he caught a glimpse of Alex, and his mouth dropped open. Alex looked at Max and snorted, then broke into hysterical laughter. Max looked at his own clothes then looked in the mirror. He had on a silky yellow shirt that must have been brighter than the Antarian sun. And as if that weren’t enough, it had purple polka-dots that almost pulsated with their own life. Then there were hot pink diagonal lines zig-zagging through all the polka-dots, connecting them in random fashion. On his head, Max had an odd-looking hat with a very large feather in it, and around his neck was a bright red kerchief that looked more like something a clown would wear. Alex had on a pink shirt with green vertical stripes and a hat that was three times too large. But most embarrassingly, over his pants, he had on a pair of women’s undies… with the word “Monday” across the front in Antarian.
“I’m not even going to ask what that says,” Alex said. “Max?”
Max shrugged. “I’d say they’re playing a joke on us, Alex. Must be your personality rubbing off on everyone.”
“Oh, yeah! Blame it on the guy with the alien undies! That’s always the way!”
Max grinned. “You do look… amazing, Alex! I must admit.”
“Look at yourself, you pervert. Stop looking at my undies!”
Max turned red but couldn’t stop laughing.
“Where did you find this stuff,” Max asked Liz. “I don’t think even the diciest Antarian would wear these things!” Liz looked over to the side and motioned to someone to come out. It was Jayyd Guerin, and she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Did they like it, Aunt Liz?”
“They loved it, Jayyd!” Liz turned back to Max, “I called Michael and asked if we could borrow Jayyd for a little while… to alter some colors for us. When I explained what we needed, he was more than eager to help.”
“Oh, I’ll just bet he was,” Max said. “Is he here, too? Come on out, Michael! …We may have that execution yet, Alex!”
Michael walked out from behind the wall with a smile on his face. “You guys look… ridiculous.”
Max and Alex pulled their shirts off quickly and put their own shirts back on, and Alex pulled off the panties and the oversized hat.
“I’ve got to say, though, Max, I thought it brought out the real you,” Michael added with a chuckle.
“Laugh it up, Michael! Payback will be sweet!”
“You’ll have to top this,” Michael said. “And the sweet thing is, it was Liz’s idea!”
Liz Evans shrugged and looked sheepish. Both Lizzes were laughing.
“I especially like that hat with the big feather, Max,” Michael said. “It’s really fetching!”
Max reached up and pulled the hat off of his head.
“That can’t be a real feather,” Alex said. “It’s got to be at least three feet long!”
“I think it’s a jah-ee feather,” Liz Evans said.
“You’ve got birds that big?”
“Only the jah-ee. This is one of its smallest feathers. I’ve seen people picking up small loose feathers after Max has had a visit from the jah-ee. I guess they sell the feathers to designers.”
Max looked at the hat and pulled out the price tag. “Oh, geez! Put this back! I’d have to mortgage the palace to pay for this!”
Liz looked at the tag. “Well, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration… but that is an awful lot of money. I guess jah-ee feathers aren’t cheap.”
Michael snorted, as he began to laugh again. “Well, they look good on you, Max! You’ll have to wear them more often.”
Max reddened.
“And Alex,” Michael said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I think I can spring for you to get the whole set of those cute undies. You don’t want to wear ‘Monday’ every day.”
Alex turned red. “Is that what it said?”
Liz nodded.
“Well, I guess it could have been worse,” Alex said. “I had all kinds of ideas about what that might have said.”
Max and Michael laughed, and then both Lizzes began to laugh again, though they were trying hard not to.
“Have you guys eaten yet,” Michael asked. Max shook his head.
“Common, let’s go to the CrashDown then,” Michael said. “I’ll treat.”
“Well, I am getting kind of hungry again,” Alex said.
“Me, too,” Liz Parker said, nodding.
“Okay,” Max agreed. “Just let me take a quick look in the mirror again to make sure I’m back to my own self.”
“You really should wear the feather,” Michael chuckled. “Maybe they’d rent it to you for the day.”
“Laugh it up, big guy,” Max said. “Alex will get to see that execution.”
“Don’t worry, Alex,” Liz Evans said. “There hasn’t been an execution on Antar since Max and Michael kicked Kivar’s butt and took our planet back.”
Alex smiled and nodded understandingly.
“You executed Kivar?”
“No,” Max said. “The jah-ee took care of Kivar and Nicholas for us. Kivar was the last one to execute anyone on Antar. There’s very little crime on Antar, and after Kivar, everyone would just as soon never see an execution again.”
“Really? That’s good to know,” Alex said.
“Though I still could make an exception,” Max said with a grin.
“Let’s go get some chow,” Michael said. Jayyd, you hungry?”
“UM HMMM!”
“Good. Come on, guys.”
Liz paid for the things they had bought, including a couple of shirts and pants for Max and Alex. Then Max, Michael, Liz Evans, Liz Parker, Alex, and Jayyd all left together with Michael to go to the CrashDown.
**********
Liz Parker stared at the front of the CrashDown for several minutes, then she walked through the door and sat down with the others at a large booth in the corner. Almost immediately, a young Antarian girl appeared to take their orders… dressed in the same alien motif apron and antennae that Liz had once worn. The girl took their orders with a smile and then disappeared into the kitchen.
“I can’t believe this,” Liz said. “I feel like… like I should be putting my apron on and going to work. I expect at any minute Dad will walk out and…”
As she spoke, Jeff Parker walked out of the kitchen and looked up to see Max, Michael, Jayyd, a somewhat young-looking Alex, and… two Lizzes. He shook his head and opened his eyes again.
“If I go back to bed and wake up again, are there still going to be two of you, Liz?”
Liz Evans nodded. “I’m afraid so, Dad.”
“You called him, Dad?” Liz Parker asked automatically. “Oh, that’s right… I guess he is… you are… I mean…” Liz Evans stood up and put her arms around Jeff, and then Liz Parker did, too.
“You look just like Dad… I guess you are… in a way… only you look a little… older maybe… Is that a couple of white hairs I see?”
“That’s what happens when you see your daughter suddenly become a teenager again,” Jeff said, plucking the two hairs out and looking at them.
Alex laughed, and Liz smiled.
“It’s a long story, Dad,” Liz Evans said. “Liz and Alex here are from… we think they’re from a sort of parallel dimension. The orbs brought them here. Liz was shot at her graduation and woke up from a four-month coma to find out she was paralyzed. Somehow, she’s not paralyzed when she’s here, though.”
Jeff appeared clearly moved by this information.
“I always wondered how we managed to make it out of there without losing our children,” he said. “It was a miracle. Did the others survive… in your world… wherever you came from?”
“That’s what they’re trying to find out, Dad. Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria were supposedly killed. Four months after their funerals, though, Sheriff Valenti found out that the bodies weren’t in their coffins. And Liz here has had flashes in which she has seen Max and Maria calling her. She thinks they may all be alive.”
“Da-” Jeff stated, then he glanced at Jayyd… “Doggone FBI Special Unit and the Army’s Alien Task Force. They were a scourge in our world… until Dan became the head of the unit. Dan changed everything. He’s one of the good ones.”
“Dan who?” Liz Parker asked.
“You wouldn’t know him. Dan Klein… and his wife, Diane. What was her maiden name? Anyway, it’s Klein now. Casey! That was her name before. Diane Casey. She used to be an agent with the FBI’s Special Unit, but she turned to our side. Then the President made Dan head of the Unit after the former head disappeared leaving the Unit in disarray and plagued by scandal. Dan gave the Unit a whole new direction, and he and Diane travel back and forth to Earth all the time now.”
“From Antar?” Alex asked. Jeff nodded.
“Maybe Dan Klein could help us,” Alex suggested.
“I doubt it, Alex,” Jeff said. “Before Diane met us and Dan fell in love with her, both of them were Special Unit agents. They never met us yet in your world it would seem. You seem to be ten or fifteen years younger than we are. And since graduation didn’t happen the same way in your world, there’s no guarantee that anything else will either.”
“But maybe the people have the same hearts,” Alex said. “I don’t know… maybe they just need to find their way in our world like they did in yours. What I mean is that as long as nothing comes along and affects this Dan Klein in my world, he may remain a dedicated agent, but given similar… situations… he might turn out to have the same heart that the one in your world does.”
Jeff nodded. “I see what you’re saying… and you could be right… but the situation that brought Dan over to our side in our world may never be duplicated in your world. I would have to consider him extremely dangerous in his… let’s say, pre-enlightened days… Diane, too, probably. Besides, I don’t think we would know where to find him, and even if we did, he would have no influence in your world. He hasn’t been made the head of the agency there yet… He may never be.”
Alex nodded and sighed. “It was just a thought.”
The girl returned and placed the orders on the table. Alex and Liz seemed especially hungry, but everyone seemed to enjoy the food. As they were finishing, another person came into the CrashDown.
“Varec!” Max called. “Over here! Come join us.” Varec smiled and walked quickly over to the table and sat down.
“I’ve got good news, Zan!”
“Well, tell us,” Max said, swallowing a bite of his alien cheeseburger. “We could use some good news… anything you’ve got.”
“I can get you back,” Varec said to Alex and Liz. “You can go home!”
Everyone was silent.
“I thought you’d be happy,” Varec said. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah… yeah, it is, Varec,” Max said. “It’s just that it’s so… sudden… and unexpected.”
Alex and Liz both nodded.
“Well…” Varec said, sizing up the situation astutely, “there’s no need to leave until you want to, of course. It could just as well be tomorrow… or a year from now… as today.”
Alex sighed and looked at Liz, and she smiled slightly.
“You don’t look forward to going back to the chair, do you, Liz?” Alex asked.
Liz shook her head, and Varec looked confused. “The electric chair?”
Liz smiled and sniffed. “Worse! The wheelchair. It’s alright, Alex. I have to find Max… and Maria and Michael and Isabel. If I’m not there to keep pushing everyone to find them, who will? I know Amy will always look for Maria, but she needs somebody to help her. I have to do it… and I have to go back right away. How soon can we go?”
Varec took out a set of orbs. “Anytime you’re ready.”
Liz looked at Alex.
Alex swallowed and nodded. “We need to go now,” he said to Varec. “Max… Michael… Liz… it’s been… super meeting you and being here. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.” Alex sniffed, then Liz did, too. Liz hugged Max, and Max kissed her on the cheek. Then she hugged Michael and her counterpart, Liz Evans. Then she hugged Jeff again.
Alex looked at Jayyd and smiled. “Jayyd, it’s been a special… um… experience meeting you! If I ever need some clown clothes, I’ll sure see if you’re available to do the color changes. You’re awesome!”
Liz smiled and hugged Jayyd. “That goes for me, too. I really could use you on my world. Varec? Can we go?”
Varec nodded and handed Alex and Liz each an orb.
“Each of you hold an orb in one hand, and hold each other’s hands with the other hand. Then place the two orbs together, forming a complete circuit.”
“Then she’s gonna click her heels together three times while saying, ‘I want to go home,’ right?” Alex said. Liz laughed and slapped him playfully on the arm.
“No,” Varec said. “Verbal incantations won’t work. You both need to concentrate on the orbs and on where you want to go. You will see the object of your search in your minds. Then you go to it.”
“Just like that?” Alex asked.
Varec nodded.
“Think about our bodies, Alex. We want to go back to our bodies on Earth.”
“Good thinking, Liz.” Both of them closed their eyes. Max looked at his wife, Liz. She had tears in her eyes. Then he looked at Michael. Michael swallowed silently. Max looked back at Alex and Liz and raised one hand as they began to disappear.
“Take care of her, Alex,” he said, his voice breaking in spite of all his efforts. “Keep her laughing.”
As Alex and Liz disappeared, the orbs fell to the floor. At the table, several minutes passed in silence… other than for the occasional sniffle and the sound of napkins disappearing from the napkin holder.
“Varec,” Max said, finally breaking the silence, “could we use our orbs to go to her world?”
“I don’t think so, Zan. I could research some more, but dimensional travel with the orbs was a fluke. It wasn’t supposed to happen. What I found out was that their coming here opened up a pathway for the orbs to take them back… under the right conditions.”
“Could we go there with the sphere of the portal?”
Varec shook his head. “The sphere’s are confined to this dimension… They can see and travel into the past and future… but only in our dimension. Unfortunately, there is no experience with dimensional travel in our history.”
“Then there’s no way that you know of for us to help them?”
“Well… there may be one.”
“What?”
“The New Granolith. Theoretically, it could travel dimensionally. You must understand that it has never been tried or proven. It’s only a theory.”
“Your theory, Varec?”
Varec nodded.
“That’s good enough for me.” Max looked at Michael, and Michael nodded his agreement. Then he looked at Liz, and she nodded, too.
“How long would it take to get the ship ready?”
“Three days… then, by my calculations, twelve days to get there.”
“How soon can you get workers started on preparing the New Granolith? It hasn’t been used for a while.”
“They’ve already started. I expected you to make this decision.”
“Michael,” Max said, “We need to plan this out over the next couple of days while they’re preparing the New Granolith. And we need to recruit whoever’s going to go with us to help.”
Michael nodded, and Max looked around the table and smiled…
“Folks… We’re going to Earth.”
tbc
Coming up: This storyline will continue, chronologically, in The Night The Dreams Died. Alex and Liz return to their bodies, but things are not as they left them. To help Max, Maria, Michael, and Isabel, they will first have to save themselves, and the prospects of that have just gone from challenging to dismal. In the next chapter of this book, The Four Faces Of Rath, Max and group set out for Earth in Dimension “Y” with the New Granolith, but being twelve days away, there is a real fear that they may be too late to help anyone by the time they arrive. Expect Amy and Jim to be formidable together. If they can keep Liz and Alex from a tragic end for long enough… and if Maria can keep Isabel alive long enough… and not be discovered… help is on the way. But will Max and the other rescuers get there in time… or will they simply be too late to do anything but mourn when they finally get there? And are Liz and Alex really as helpless as their persecutors believe them to be?
Way Way Way Over The Rainbow
Chapter 58
LVIII
Liz and Alex stared at the “car,” a royal blue Fan-Ji IV…
“I don’t hear the motor or anything,” Liz said, shaking her head in amazement. “How is it just staying there like that in the air?”
Max smiled. Liz knew that she was looking at some kind of hover car or anti-gravity vehicle, but she couldn’t figure out what made it stay where it was without any noisy fans or anything underneath to lift it off the ground… or any sound of a motor at all as far as she could tell. Yet there it was… about fifteen inches off the ground… not moving at all, as though it were perfectly normal for it to just be parked there like that in the air.
“Where’s the door handle,” Alex asked, running his hand appreciatively over the side of the car.
Max pressed his hand to the door just below the window, and a handprint appeared briefly, then the top of the car, “doors” and all, floated back.
“Awesome,” Alex said. “Could I do it, or are you the only one who can open it?”
“It’s programmed to my DNA,” Max said, “but it’ll respond to anyone I program it to recognize.”
“Awesome,” Alex repeated. “I don’t guess I could take one of these back with me? I love this car…”
Max smiled. “It might be hard to explain.”
“I know,” Alex acknowledged ruefully, “but it sure would be fun to drive back to college in one of these.”
Max helped Liz Parker and his wife into the car, though clearly there was no need other than mere chivalry. All they had to do was step in and sit down. Even the seat restraints were automatic. Alex stepped into the back with Liz Parker, and Max sat down in the driver’s seat then waved his hand over a sensor on the dash. The car seemed to rise upward gently and rotate to the left as Max turned the steering wheel. Then it moved forward smoothly. It felt oddly like an Earth car, except that it was floating on air, so there were no bumps, no road noises… just the sound of the wind… until Max pressed a button, closing the side ports… small vents in the lower part of the windows. Then there was only silence, as the scenery whisked by.
Suddenly, Liz and Alex’s seats, which were individually controlled, both tilted back slightly.
“What happened,” Alex asked. “Did I do that?”
Max grinned. “No, I did it. You can control them yourselves, though.”
Alex moved his hand around under the seat but found no control levers or buttons.
“Lift your hand,” Max said. “Point at the back of the seat in front of you.”
Alex did, and a set of sensors appeared in the air in front of him. They were there… yet not there… at least not in the sense that they could actually be felt, physically. The entire panel was something that Alex could only describe as “virtual reality.” He pushed at a sensor button, but his finger went through the panel, and nothing happened.
“Try again,” Max said. “Just touch it… Don’t stick your finger through it.”
Alex “touched” the sensor on the virtual touch pad with his fingertip, and his seat resumed an upright position. Then he leaned the seat back again.
“Cool! Awesome!” What does this one do?” Alex pointed at another sensor on the virtual touch pad.
“In the lower right corner? That’s the eject button,” Max said. “That’s in case the car goes crazy and takes off headed for the stars with everyone in it… You push that button and it throws you out of the car through the roof.”
Alex looked at Max for any sign that he was joking. Max didn’t have a trace of a smile or a grin.
“Really?” Alex asked, removing his finger carefully. Max smiled.
“Max, you’re no different in any dimension!” Alex pressed the sensor, and music began to waft out from the virtual console. Then he lowered his hand, and the virtual console disappeared, but the music continued.
“Not bad,” Alex said. “I kind of like it.” Liz, sitting next to him, looked at him quizzically.
“The music, I mean.”
“What music,” Liz asked.
“The music that I just turned on. Don’t you hear it?”
Liz shook her head.
“It’s audible only to you, Alex,” Liz Evans said from the front. “The controls allow you to make it audible to everyone if you wish, but their controls allow them to override it if they choose not to listen to it or prefer to listen to something else.”
“Mom and Dad would have loved that!” Alex said. He leaned his seat back again and watched the scenery go by.
“It looks a lot like Earth,” he said after several minutes had passed. “I mean, you have trees and bushes and lakes and… and even horses.”
Liz Evans nodded. “Our horses are a little different when you see them up close, though.”
“Well, they look just like regular horses running out there in the pasture… and they gallop like real horses… What? Do they fly or something?”
Liz laughed. “No… not that we know of. They just come with some unusual colors and markings… and they’ve got this little thing on their heads like a budding unicorn’s horn. It’s not obvious from a distance. The Antarians call them yoriths… the horses, I mean.”
“They run fast,” Liz Parker said. Liz Evans nodded. “Wait’ll you see Jim’s pawgor run… and jump! It’s incredible.”
“That’s the saber-tooth tiger I saw playing with the little boy… Danyy, isn’t it,” the younger Liz said.
Alex looked surprised. “So then you, uh… you weren’t just kidding about that before? Liz shook her head.
“Oh… um… okay…” Alex said softly.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s exactly a saber-tooth tiger,” Liz Evans said, “like the ones on Earth in prehistoric times. But it looks just like all the pictures I’ve ever seen of one… so that’s what we call it… other than a pawgor I mean. That’s what it really is, of course… a pawgor.”
Liz watched the scenery distractedly for several moments, then she looked back at Alex. “We should really be trying to get back home, Alex… Max and Michael and Maria and Isabel are still lost, and I need to find them… and I don’t know what will happen when Mom and Dad find us together in the den.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Alex said. “You don’t think your Dad will think… I mean… We were both sitting up, right? He won’t think… you know…?”
“I’m sure he’ll forgive you, Alex.”
Alex swallowed.
“After he throws you out the window,” Liz added with a slight smile.
“See… that’s what I’m afraid of,” Alex said. “Your apartment’s upstairs… and I don’t bounce very well.”
Liz smiled. “Dad would know something was wrong, Alex. You don’t need to worry about him throwing you out the window. I’m worried about what he’ll think, though, when neither one of us wakes up.”
Alex looked at her and nodded, understanding fully the implications of what Liz was saying.
“Well, I’ve got Varec researching the history of the orbs now,” Max said. “He’s the best scientist on Antar. If the information is available anywhere, he’ll find out what you need to do to get back. We have our own set of orbs here, but Varec was concerned about sending you back with ours, since yours were from another dimension or something. We don’t want to send you back where you don’t belong and have you lost… interdimensionally or something… like those guys on Sliders on TV back on Earth.”
“That could really happen?” Alex asked.
“You’re here,” Max said. “It seems you’ve proved it.”
“So… how are we going to get back?” Alex asked. “We kind of left our orbs behind when we came here.”
“That’s what Varec is trying to find out,” Max said. “There has to be a way to do it. Varec and I both feel certain of that. It’s just a matter of knowing what it is. When we know, we’ll tell you and help you get back… but for now, all you can do is relax and enjoy your time here… however long or short it might be.”
“I’m enjoying being here and seeing everything…” Liz said. “but I feel guilty… like I shouldn’t be here when I need to be helping them… They could be hurt.”
“You were paralyzed before you came here, weren’t you, Liz?” Liz Evans asked.
Liz Parker nodded.
“How were you going to help them if you were paralyzed?”
“I was getting better,” Liz said. “I exercised… as much as I could… for therapy. Vera helped me. That’s my nurse. I just need to be there. I don’t know what I can do, but I need to be there to try. Can you understand?”
Liz Evans turned around and looked at her younger self and nodded. “Yeah. I can understand.”
Max brought the car to a stop beside a tight parking space between two other cars. “This is our oldest and best still-standing department store right here, guys. It’s called ‘Kyyks.’” Max turned the steering wheel to the right while depressing a small button on the center console bar, and the car floated sideways into the parking space and stopped.
“That was too cool,” Alex said. “How many years are we behind you on Earth?”
“You mean how long till you can buy one of these?” Max asked.
“Yeah.”
“Earth civilization is about 28,000 years younger than Antarian civilization.”
“I don’t think I can wait that long,” Alex said.
Max grinned. “That doesn’t mean it will take that long on Earth. Antar had different priorities along the way. You could have something like this in the next… hundred years or so.”
“Oh, just a hundred? No problem then,” Alex said, looking downcast in spite of his grin. “I’ll just put it on my Christmas list for the year 2,114.”
“Sorry, Alex,” Max said. Max waved his hand over the console, and the top and doors floated back and the seat restraints unlocked. “Everyone who’s going in, follow Liz. She lives here when she’s not in the palace,” Max said with a wry grin.
Liz smiled sheepishly. “I don’t always buy something. I just like to shop. Besides, you’ve been over to that new hover car dealer with all the new alien vehicles more times lately than I’ve been here.”
Max nodded. “She’s right. It’s my downfall. The Fan-Ji IV is an Antarian car, but alien vehicles are becoming all the rage at the moment here on Antar. There are some very unusual vehicles out there… built by creatures whose physiology is radically different than ours in some cases… creatures who have radically different concepts of what transportation should be like. It’s kind of awesome to see some of them up close and test drive them.”
“I can imagine,” Alex said.
Liz laughed. “Wait’ll you’ve seen some of them, Alex! I’m not sure that you can imagine! At least Antarian cars look pretty much like Earth cars, even if they are futuristic by Earth standards.”
As they turned to go in, a long, strange-looking vehicle pulled up alongside Max’s Fan-Ji IV. Easily three times as long as Max’s car, this new vehicle had large flaps that stuck out on the lower sides. They probably had something to do with the hovering system or with stabilizing the car, but they made it look like a giant translucent stingray –the fish kind- with windows on the top, swimming down the road.
“Good luck finding a place to park that!” Alex laughed.
As he watched, a man, and then a woman, exited the vehicle. Then the vehicle disappeared suddenly in a bright flash of light.
“Where did it go,” Alex asked.’’
“Watch,” Max replied. The man leaned over and picked up something tiny at his feet and put it into his pocket.
“When he comes back out and presses the button, the car will become normal size again,” Max said.
“Well, I hope he doesn’t accidentally press the button while he’s got the car in his pocket…” Alex scoffed… “especially when he’s on the escalator or something. That would be interesting. It’s so tiny. What if he can’t find it after he shrinks it… or someone steps on it before he can pick it up? It looks more like a flattened plastic submarine… or some kind of freaky, ground-hugging flying saucer with a limo attached to the back! Who would make a car like that?”
Max smiled. “The Archedians would. And it’s not plastic. They call it neopseudobiological stressed metallic alloy. You think it looks odd outside… You should see it inside!”
Alex shook his head. “No thanks. The only thing I can imagine worse than accidentally pressing the button when that car’s in my pocket would be accidentally shrinking it with me still in it. I don’t feel like swimming in a bowl of milk with my arm through a cheerio or using ant transportation until someone finds me with a magnifying glass and picks me up with a pair of tweezers, thank you.”
Liz Parker giggled, and her Antarian counterpart smiled.
“What does the guy that owns it say in the morning,” Alex continued. “Honey, I can’t find the car. Do you remember which coat I left it in? By the way… Where’s our kid? Was that him I saw swimming in my froot loops this morning?”
Both Lizzes laughed.
Max smiled. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
“Honest, Dear,” Alex continued, faking a female voice as they walked into the store, “I swear I didn’t know the car was in the pocket when I put your pants in the washer.”
Both Lizzes were laughing out loud now, and Max was shaking his head.
“Maybe if I use the hair dryer on it…” Alex added apologetically, using his most contrite female voice.
“Don’t encourage him,” Max said, smiling too, in spite of himself. “You wouldn’t want to be responsible for him running away and becoming a circus clown.”
“You’re just jealous,” Alex said, “because I can make girls laugh without dropping my pants.”
Liz’s mouth fell open, and she glanced at her Antarian counterpart, who was smiling slightly but appeared shocked, too. Max looked at Alex…
“Alex… You’re the same in any dimension.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Alex said.
“Go easy, Alex,” Liz Parker whispered to him. “He is the king here… He could have you locked up… or executed… or something.”
Alex smiled. “He’s just Max… king or no king. He’s still Max.”
Max took out his communicator and punched a number. “Jarto’h, how long would it take to prepare the gallows for an afternoon execution? Four hours? Can you make it three? Good.” Max put the device back into his pocket.
“He’s kidding,” Alex said confidently. “You were kidding… right, Max?”
Max didn’t answer.
“I’m sure he was kidding,” Alex said. “Max wouldn’t… I mean… I know he’s not our Max, but he’s still… How different can he be just because he’s from another dimension… and a king here?”
Max remained silent. Alex seemed unusually quiet for a few minutes, then he shrugged.
“I was just kidding, you know, Max… about the… you know… I don’t know where that came from. It was just a joke.”
“Liz,” Max said, “why don’t you and… uh, you and Liz… go check out the ladies things, and I’ll take care of Alex. I’ll meet you here in, say, two hours?”
Alex swallowed. Liz nodded and smiled then turned to lead her unsure younger counterpart off toward another section of the store. Max motioned for Alex to follow.
“I know what you’re doing, Alex?”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“What am I doing?”
Max smiled. “Liz was shot, paralyzed… and condemned unfairly to live her life in a wheelchair. She’s had every reason to be emotionally destroyed, every reason to give up on life… to give up on happiness. You’ve been keeping her spirits up… keeping her laughing… giving her a friend to lean on.”
Alex shrugged. “Yeah… well, I just do it… I don’t think about it, but… I just wanted to… yeah… I guess you’re right. I have been trying to make her laugh. I just want her to be happy, Max. So does Kyle… and Kyle’s Dad… Sheriff Valenti… and her Mom and Dad. I guess I can try to tone the joking down if you…”
Max shook his head. “Don’t even think about doing that! The two of you may be from another dimension… and she may be younger than my Liz… but she’s still Liz. And I still love her, Alex. Make her laugh! All you can! You’ve got something that puts her at ease and makes her happy… a natural sense of humor and compassion… Like I said, you really are a lot like our Alex… I guess you really are the same in any dimension… Anyway, I just wanted you to know… I appreciate what you’re doing. And I wanted to thank you… for my counterpart down there… wherever he is… and… and… for me, too.” Max looked at Alex, and Alex thought he saw a glint of moisture in Max’s eyes.
“You’re not going to execute me, then?”
Max grinned slowly. “Oh, I didn’t say that. What’s an afternoon without a good execution? But if you keep Liz smiling and laughing, I guess I’d be obliged to pardon you.”
“I’ll give it my usual superior effort, your highness,” Alex replied with an understanding smile.
“I’m sure you will,” Max said. “I don’t know if I can take it… But it makes Liz laugh, so don’t ever stop! …You want to play some pinball?”
“You’ve got that up here?”
Max nodded. “Well, it’s the Antarian version, but it’s pretty much the same idea as Earth pinball… sort of.”
“Yeah, okay, sure! But I thought we were supposed to be shopping for clothes.”
“What for,” Max asked.
“Well… to wear, I guess.”
“No need. When we see the girls, they’ll want us to come check out some shirts and things that they saw that they thought would look great on us. We go with them and try them on. Voila! We found what we came for. We just buy what they like. Saves us having to make a lot of choices.”
“I think I see why you wore that same brown sweater all the time back on Earth, Max.”
“We’ve still got time for an execution this afternoon.”
“Pinball sounds good.”
**********
In the ladies wear department, Liz Parker picked up a rather pretty blouse and held it up. It had an oddly exotic look, but it could pass for Earth wear. Most of the clothes she saw here could, though there were a few that probably would raise some eyebrows and bring unwanted questions.
“When we go back, will we be able to take anything with us?”
Liz Evans thought a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t know why not, though. You came here with what you had on.”
“But we had the orbs in our hands… and they stayed there.”
“Yeah, that’s true… Maybe they’re made to… I don’t know. We’ll just have to find out, I guess, won’t we?”
Liz Parker smiled. “I’d really love to take some of these back, but I know some of them would be hard to explain. People would want to know who the designer was, and what would I tell them?”
“Give them a name… any Antarian name. They’ll probably say they’ve heard of him.”
Liz laughed. “You’re right. They probably would. Some of our designers on Earth are a little out of the world anyway! You know… I’m really glad I came here. I haven’t really been out shopping since… since… well, you know… what happened to me.”
Liz Evans nodded.
“And it would be hard to really enjoy myself shopping in a wheelchair… not the way I’m enjoying myself right now, being here with you… walking and all.”
“I know,” Liz Evans said, smiling. “I’m glad you came here, too. Maybe we can find a way to help you find Max and the others when you go back.”
“Oh, I hope so,” the younger Liz said. “That would be like… a dream come true! Max is… well… the first guy… the only guy really… I ever really loved. I’m crazy about Kyle and Alex, but I love Max. Can you understand?”
“Look who you’re talking to,” Liz Evans said. “Yeah, I understand.”
“I hope your Max and my Alex are having fun shopping,” Liz Parker said.
“Oh, they’re playing pinball,” Liz Evans said, “or video games one… in the arcade.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m married to him… I know a lot of things he doesn’t know I know.” Liz smiled. “They’ll show up and expect us to show them some great-looking clothes we found for them, they’ll buy them, and they’ll pretend they were shopping the whole time.”
“You don’t mind?”
Liz Evans smiled. “Why should I mind? I know he’ll be well-dressed.”
Liz Parker laughed. “Good point! But I can’t believe they would try to make us think they were shopping while they were really somewhere else… having fun.”
“Well, we’re having fun,” Liz Evans said.
“Well, yeah, I know, but guys aren’t supposed to have fun shopping.”
“I guess that’s why they’re in the video arcade.”
“I guess so… but you know… if they tell us they were shopping, I think I’d like to play a little joke on them.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Liz Parker whispered to her Antarian counterpart, and Liz Evans smiled. “It sounds like something Alex might appreciate… a few years from now.” She nodded. “I like it.”
**********
After playing various Antarian video games in the arcade, Max looked at the time and patted Alex on the back.
“Ten minutes till we’re supposed to meet the girls. We better not be late. They may come looking for us.”
“You live a dangerous life, Max.”
Max smiled. “Some of us thrive on danger, Alex. It’s the daredevil in us.”
“Or maybe just the devil.” Alex grinned.
“What was that?”
Alex shook his head. “Nothing.”
As Max and Alex walked back toward the place where they had left Liz and her younger counterpart, they saw that the girls were already there.
“There they are, Alex. Remember what I told you.”
Alex nodded.
“How’d you guys do,” Liz Parker asked. “I don’t see any packages.”
“We didn’t find anything we liked,” Max said, only half lying.
“Well,” Liz Evans said, “We saw some things that would look great for both of you! Why don’t you come take a look! Try them on!”
Max looked at Alex and smiled. Alex shook his head. “You da man, Max. You called it,” he said quietly.
Max grinned. “Okay, we’ll look. I hope they’re better than what we looked at.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that,” Liz Evans said. She took Max by the hand and led him to the men’s department.
“Close your eyes… both of you. We want it to be a surprise. You’re gonna love it!”
Max looked at Alex and shrugged, then both of them closed their eyes. Liz Evans unbuttoned Max’s shirt and took it off, and her younger counterpart unbuttoned and removed Alex’s shirt. Then they both worked quickly to put another shirt on each one. Max felt Liz put something on his head and something around his neck. He wondered about it, ties being unusual apparel on Antar, but then he figured that it must be an Antarian dress collar. Liz Parker put a hat on Alex’s head and told him to sit down. Then she slipped something on over his pants.
“Okay, guys, you can look now,” Liz Evans said. “What do you think?”
“It looks great,” Max said, automatically, as he opened his eyes. Then he caught a glimpse of Alex, and his mouth dropped open. Alex looked at Max and snorted, then broke into hysterical laughter. Max looked at his own clothes then looked in the mirror. He had on a silky yellow shirt that must have been brighter than the Antarian sun. And as if that weren’t enough, it had purple polka-dots that almost pulsated with their own life. Then there were hot pink diagonal lines zig-zagging through all the polka-dots, connecting them in random fashion. On his head, Max had an odd-looking hat with a very large feather in it, and around his neck was a bright red kerchief that looked more like something a clown would wear. Alex had on a pink shirt with green vertical stripes and a hat that was three times too large. But most embarrassingly, over his pants, he had on a pair of women’s undies… with the word “Monday” across the front in Antarian.
“I’m not even going to ask what that says,” Alex said. “Max?”
Max shrugged. “I’d say they’re playing a joke on us, Alex. Must be your personality rubbing off on everyone.”
“Oh, yeah! Blame it on the guy with the alien undies! That’s always the way!”
Max grinned. “You do look… amazing, Alex! I must admit.”
“Look at yourself, you pervert. Stop looking at my undies!”
Max turned red but couldn’t stop laughing.
“Where did you find this stuff,” Max asked Liz. “I don’t think even the diciest Antarian would wear these things!” Liz looked over to the side and motioned to someone to come out. It was Jayyd Guerin, and she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Did they like it, Aunt Liz?”
“They loved it, Jayyd!” Liz turned back to Max, “I called Michael and asked if we could borrow Jayyd for a little while… to alter some colors for us. When I explained what we needed, he was more than eager to help.”
“Oh, I’ll just bet he was,” Max said. “Is he here, too? Come on out, Michael! …We may have that execution yet, Alex!”
Michael walked out from behind the wall with a smile on his face. “You guys look… ridiculous.”
Max and Alex pulled their shirts off quickly and put their own shirts back on, and Alex pulled off the panties and the oversized hat.
“I’ve got to say, though, Max, I thought it brought out the real you,” Michael added with a chuckle.
“Laugh it up, Michael! Payback will be sweet!”
“You’ll have to top this,” Michael said. “And the sweet thing is, it was Liz’s idea!”
Liz Evans shrugged and looked sheepish. Both Lizzes were laughing.
“I especially like that hat with the big feather, Max,” Michael said. “It’s really fetching!”
Max reached up and pulled the hat off of his head.
“That can’t be a real feather,” Alex said. “It’s got to be at least three feet long!”
“I think it’s a jah-ee feather,” Liz Evans said.
“You’ve got birds that big?”
“Only the jah-ee. This is one of its smallest feathers. I’ve seen people picking up small loose feathers after Max has had a visit from the jah-ee. I guess they sell the feathers to designers.”
Max looked at the hat and pulled out the price tag. “Oh, geez! Put this back! I’d have to mortgage the palace to pay for this!”
Liz looked at the tag. “Well, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration… but that is an awful lot of money. I guess jah-ee feathers aren’t cheap.”
Michael snorted, as he began to laugh again. “Well, they look good on you, Max! You’ll have to wear them more often.”
Max reddened.
“And Alex,” Michael said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I think I can spring for you to get the whole set of those cute undies. You don’t want to wear ‘Monday’ every day.”
Alex turned red. “Is that what it said?”
Liz nodded.
“Well, I guess it could have been worse,” Alex said. “I had all kinds of ideas about what that might have said.”
Max and Michael laughed, and then both Lizzes began to laugh again, though they were trying hard not to.
“Have you guys eaten yet,” Michael asked. Max shook his head.
“Common, let’s go to the CrashDown then,” Michael said. “I’ll treat.”
“Well, I am getting kind of hungry again,” Alex said.
“Me, too,” Liz Parker said, nodding.
“Okay,” Max agreed. “Just let me take a quick look in the mirror again to make sure I’m back to my own self.”
“You really should wear the feather,” Michael chuckled. “Maybe they’d rent it to you for the day.”
“Laugh it up, big guy,” Max said. “Alex will get to see that execution.”
“Don’t worry, Alex,” Liz Evans said. “There hasn’t been an execution on Antar since Max and Michael kicked Kivar’s butt and took our planet back.”
Alex smiled and nodded understandingly.
“You executed Kivar?”
“No,” Max said. “The jah-ee took care of Kivar and Nicholas for us. Kivar was the last one to execute anyone on Antar. There’s very little crime on Antar, and after Kivar, everyone would just as soon never see an execution again.”
“Really? That’s good to know,” Alex said.
“Though I still could make an exception,” Max said with a grin.
“Let’s go get some chow,” Michael said. Jayyd, you hungry?”
“UM HMMM!”
“Good. Come on, guys.”
Liz paid for the things they had bought, including a couple of shirts and pants for Max and Alex. Then Max, Michael, Liz Evans, Liz Parker, Alex, and Jayyd all left together with Michael to go to the CrashDown.
**********
Liz Parker stared at the front of the CrashDown for several minutes, then she walked through the door and sat down with the others at a large booth in the corner. Almost immediately, a young Antarian girl appeared to take their orders… dressed in the same alien motif apron and antennae that Liz had once worn. The girl took their orders with a smile and then disappeared into the kitchen.
“I can’t believe this,” Liz said. “I feel like… like I should be putting my apron on and going to work. I expect at any minute Dad will walk out and…”
As she spoke, Jeff Parker walked out of the kitchen and looked up to see Max, Michael, Jayyd, a somewhat young-looking Alex, and… two Lizzes. He shook his head and opened his eyes again.
“If I go back to bed and wake up again, are there still going to be two of you, Liz?”
Liz Evans nodded. “I’m afraid so, Dad.”
“You called him, Dad?” Liz Parker asked automatically. “Oh, that’s right… I guess he is… you are… I mean…” Liz Evans stood up and put her arms around Jeff, and then Liz Parker did, too.
“You look just like Dad… I guess you are… in a way… only you look a little… older maybe… Is that a couple of white hairs I see?”
“That’s what happens when you see your daughter suddenly become a teenager again,” Jeff said, plucking the two hairs out and looking at them.
Alex laughed, and Liz smiled.
“It’s a long story, Dad,” Liz Evans said. “Liz and Alex here are from… we think they’re from a sort of parallel dimension. The orbs brought them here. Liz was shot at her graduation and woke up from a four-month coma to find out she was paralyzed. Somehow, she’s not paralyzed when she’s here, though.”
Jeff appeared clearly moved by this information.
“I always wondered how we managed to make it out of there without losing our children,” he said. “It was a miracle. Did the others survive… in your world… wherever you came from?”
“That’s what they’re trying to find out, Dad. Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria were supposedly killed. Four months after their funerals, though, Sheriff Valenti found out that the bodies weren’t in their coffins. And Liz here has had flashes in which she has seen Max and Maria calling her. She thinks they may all be alive.”
“Da-” Jeff stated, then he glanced at Jayyd… “Doggone FBI Special Unit and the Army’s Alien Task Force. They were a scourge in our world… until Dan became the head of the unit. Dan changed everything. He’s one of the good ones.”
“Dan who?” Liz Parker asked.
“You wouldn’t know him. Dan Klein… and his wife, Diane. What was her maiden name? Anyway, it’s Klein now. Casey! That was her name before. Diane Casey. She used to be an agent with the FBI’s Special Unit, but she turned to our side. Then the President made Dan head of the Unit after the former head disappeared leaving the Unit in disarray and plagued by scandal. Dan gave the Unit a whole new direction, and he and Diane travel back and forth to Earth all the time now.”
“From Antar?” Alex asked. Jeff nodded.
“Maybe Dan Klein could help us,” Alex suggested.
“I doubt it, Alex,” Jeff said. “Before Diane met us and Dan fell in love with her, both of them were Special Unit agents. They never met us yet in your world it would seem. You seem to be ten or fifteen years younger than we are. And since graduation didn’t happen the same way in your world, there’s no guarantee that anything else will either.”
“But maybe the people have the same hearts,” Alex said. “I don’t know… maybe they just need to find their way in our world like they did in yours. What I mean is that as long as nothing comes along and affects this Dan Klein in my world, he may remain a dedicated agent, but given similar… situations… he might turn out to have the same heart that the one in your world does.”
Jeff nodded. “I see what you’re saying… and you could be right… but the situation that brought Dan over to our side in our world may never be duplicated in your world. I would have to consider him extremely dangerous in his… let’s say, pre-enlightened days… Diane, too, probably. Besides, I don’t think we would know where to find him, and even if we did, he would have no influence in your world. He hasn’t been made the head of the agency there yet… He may never be.”
Alex nodded and sighed. “It was just a thought.”
The girl returned and placed the orders on the table. Alex and Liz seemed especially hungry, but everyone seemed to enjoy the food. As they were finishing, another person came into the CrashDown.
“Varec!” Max called. “Over here! Come join us.” Varec smiled and walked quickly over to the table and sat down.
“I’ve got good news, Zan!”
“Well, tell us,” Max said, swallowing a bite of his alien cheeseburger. “We could use some good news… anything you’ve got.”
“I can get you back,” Varec said to Alex and Liz. “You can go home!”
Everyone was silent.
“I thought you’d be happy,” Varec said. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah… yeah, it is, Varec,” Max said. “It’s just that it’s so… sudden… and unexpected.”
Alex and Liz both nodded.
“Well…” Varec said, sizing up the situation astutely, “there’s no need to leave until you want to, of course. It could just as well be tomorrow… or a year from now… as today.”
Alex sighed and looked at Liz, and she smiled slightly.
“You don’t look forward to going back to the chair, do you, Liz?” Alex asked.
Liz shook her head, and Varec looked confused. “The electric chair?”
Liz smiled and sniffed. “Worse! The wheelchair. It’s alright, Alex. I have to find Max… and Maria and Michael and Isabel. If I’m not there to keep pushing everyone to find them, who will? I know Amy will always look for Maria, but she needs somebody to help her. I have to do it… and I have to go back right away. How soon can we go?”
Varec took out a set of orbs. “Anytime you’re ready.”
Liz looked at Alex.
Alex swallowed and nodded. “We need to go now,” he said to Varec. “Max… Michael… Liz… it’s been… super meeting you and being here. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.” Alex sniffed, then Liz did, too. Liz hugged Max, and Max kissed her on the cheek. Then she hugged Michael and her counterpart, Liz Evans. Then she hugged Jeff again.
Alex looked at Jayyd and smiled. “Jayyd, it’s been a special… um… experience meeting you! If I ever need some clown clothes, I’ll sure see if you’re available to do the color changes. You’re awesome!”
Liz smiled and hugged Jayyd. “That goes for me, too. I really could use you on my world. Varec? Can we go?”
Varec nodded and handed Alex and Liz each an orb.
“Each of you hold an orb in one hand, and hold each other’s hands with the other hand. Then place the two orbs together, forming a complete circuit.”
“Then she’s gonna click her heels together three times while saying, ‘I want to go home,’ right?” Alex said. Liz laughed and slapped him playfully on the arm.
“No,” Varec said. “Verbal incantations won’t work. You both need to concentrate on the orbs and on where you want to go. You will see the object of your search in your minds. Then you go to it.”
“Just like that?” Alex asked.
Varec nodded.
“Think about our bodies, Alex. We want to go back to our bodies on Earth.”
“Good thinking, Liz.” Both of them closed their eyes. Max looked at his wife, Liz. She had tears in her eyes. Then he looked at Michael. Michael swallowed silently. Max looked back at Alex and Liz and raised one hand as they began to disappear.
“Take care of her, Alex,” he said, his voice breaking in spite of all his efforts. “Keep her laughing.”
As Alex and Liz disappeared, the orbs fell to the floor. At the table, several minutes passed in silence… other than for the occasional sniffle and the sound of napkins disappearing from the napkin holder.
“Varec,” Max said, finally breaking the silence, “could we use our orbs to go to her world?”
“I don’t think so, Zan. I could research some more, but dimensional travel with the orbs was a fluke. It wasn’t supposed to happen. What I found out was that their coming here opened up a pathway for the orbs to take them back… under the right conditions.”
“Could we go there with the sphere of the portal?”
Varec shook his head. “The sphere’s are confined to this dimension… They can see and travel into the past and future… but only in our dimension. Unfortunately, there is no experience with dimensional travel in our history.”
“Then there’s no way that you know of for us to help them?”
“Well… there may be one.”
“What?”
“The New Granolith. Theoretically, it could travel dimensionally. You must understand that it has never been tried or proven. It’s only a theory.”
“Your theory, Varec?”
Varec nodded.
“That’s good enough for me.” Max looked at Michael, and Michael nodded his agreement. Then he looked at Liz, and she nodded, too.
“How long would it take to get the ship ready?”
“Three days… then, by my calculations, twelve days to get there.”
“How soon can you get workers started on preparing the New Granolith? It hasn’t been used for a while.”
“They’ve already started. I expected you to make this decision.”
“Michael,” Max said, “We need to plan this out over the next couple of days while they’re preparing the New Granolith. And we need to recruit whoever’s going to go with us to help.”
Michael nodded, and Max looked around the table and smiled…
“Folks… We’re going to Earth.”
tbc
Coming up: This storyline will continue, chronologically, in The Night The Dreams Died. Alex and Liz return to their bodies, but things are not as they left them. To help Max, Maria, Michael, and Isabel, they will first have to save themselves, and the prospects of that have just gone from challenging to dismal. In the next chapter of this book, The Four Faces Of Rath, Max and group set out for Earth in Dimension “Y” with the New Granolith, but being twelve days away, there is a real fear that they may be too late to help anyone by the time they arrive. Expect Amy and Jim to be formidable together. If they can keep Liz and Alex from a tragic end for long enough… and if Maria can keep Isabel alive long enough… and not be discovered… help is on the way. But will Max and the other rescuers get there in time… or will they simply be too late to do anything but mourn when they finally get there? And are Liz and Alex really as helpless as their persecutors believe them to be?
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
The Four Faces of Rath
The Four Faces of Rath
Split-tail Turkey
Chapter 59
LVIX
Jim tossed the two big birds down on the porch at Kathleen’s feet, and Kathleen stared at the odd-looking, round, feathered creatures with long, split tails.
“What are those, Jim?”
“Turkeys.”
“No, no, no…” Kathleen said, shaking her head emphatically. “Max said there are no turkeys on Antar. Besides, those aren’t turkeys. I know turkeys when I see them, and that’s… not them! Those aren’t anything I’ve ever seen before, Jim.”
“Well, I guess they’re Antarian turkeys, Kath. Alien turkeys would look different, wouldn’t they?”
Kathleen hesitated, as she looked at the huge birds. They were roughly the size of turkeys… maybe a little bigger. And they were fat and had turkey-like feathers… but the tail was about four feet long… and split into two halves. And the head was odd-looking. It sort of looked like a turkey’s head… except for the color… and the fire-red eyes.
“If there were such a thing as an Antarian turkey, I guess this might be what one would look like,” Kathleen conceded.
“Well, there you go, Kath! We can invite the gang over for Thanksgiving dinner!”
“Are these edible, Jim?”
Jim shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
Kathleen’s eyebrows went up a couple of inches. “Maybe you’d better let Varec test one of them first, Jim. You wouldn’t want to poison all our guests.”
“Well, there won’t be that many guests, Kath. Max and Liz, Michael and Maria, and a few others will be on their way to Earth in some other dimension by tomorrow… to save their… alternate selves or something.”
“Well… you don’t want to poison ME, do you,” Kathleen said emphatically.
Jim smiled. “Actually, Hon, Varec’s assistant already checked them out for me. They’re edible… and nutritious, she says.”
“Okay,” Kathleen said hesitantly, “but how do they taste?”
Jim shrugged. “There’s got to be SOME mystery in life, Kath. Call the others… whoever’s still left in this dimension… Tell them we’re having Thanksgiving dinner here at the ranch. The entrée is… uh… Antarian… Nan-Torel split-tail turkey.”
Kathleen shook her head and picked one of the birds up by the feet. “I don’t want to guess who’s going to pluck these.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Jim said.
“Soooo gallant of you,” Kathleen replied with a grin. “You know, eating a lot of turkey always put me to sleep. It’s that enzyme or amino acid that’s in turkey meat… tryptophan… I hope these birds don’t have that…” Kathleen looked at the huge birds again and sighed. “And I hope they’ll fit in my oven!”
~Thanksgiving Day~
At the Valenti ranch, Jim finished setting the last plate on the table then walked to the door to answer yet another knock.
“Michael! Maria! I thought when we called… you guys said you were leaving for Dimension Why this morning.”
“Dimension Y,” Michael corrected. “Yeah, we were, but the guys over at the lab needed a few more hours to get the ship ready, and we heard you were cooking.”
Jim grinned. “Yep! You heard right. Come on in. Are Max and Liz comin’, too?”
“They may. Max was still hanging around the hangar watching them prep the new granolith, but I’ve got a feeling they’ll be here.”
“Kind of a last meal before the trip, huh?”
Michael nodded. “Yeah, a last meal for awhile among friends anyway. Little R2-D2 cooks up some pretty good meals on the ship, but he’s poor company.”
Kathleen walking into the room at that moment with a crock pot full of something that looked like mashed potatoes. “R2-D2? Is that what you named the little service droid on the new granolith now?”
Maria laughed. “No, that’s just what Michael calls him. We really should name him. He’s like part of the crew. Come to think of it, we really should name the ship. What kind of name is ‘new granolith?’ It’s not even a name… it’s just a description or something.”
Jim nodded. “A name for the ship would be a good thing… The ‘Antar I’ or something.
“Yeah, something original, though… and cool,” Maria said.
As they spoke, Kyle and Jeliya walked into the room. “Michael! Maria! You guy’s late getting off on your trip?”
“Yeah,” Michael replied with an acknowledging nod. “The space guys over at the lab needed a few more hours to finish stocking the ship and calculating the dimensional theory to get us where we’re going in the other dimension.”
“Well, I’m glad you could both join us,” Kyle said, patting Michael on the back. “Alex and Isabel are out back with Mareeya and Ceelya petting the yoriths. I think Danyy’s with them. Tess and Rayylar were around here somewhere with Jiba and Drel. They may have gone for a walk or they may be out back with Alex and Iz and their kids. And Taz is playing hide and seek with a few of the other children. Where’s Kryys… and Jayyd… and Zorel?”
Michael laughed. “They saw Taz and the others and headed off to play with them till dinner’s ready.”
“Well, Danyy will keep them occupied,” Kyle said. “His pawgor friend, Jung-Jo, is out there somewhere with his mate and their three babies. Only they’re not babies anymore.”
“Yeah, I know… I saw them a few days ago,” Michael said. “They’re like half grown already.”
Kathleen came into the dining room at that moment and placed a very large platter on the table with Jim’s help… “Well, guys, the dinner’s ready. Get everyone inside and have the kids wash their hands and we can start.”
“I’ll round up the kids,” Jim said. He stepped out the door onto the porch and yelled…
“DINNER’S READY! ANYONE NOT IN THE HOUSE IN TWO MINUTES GOES HUNGRY.”
Within seconds, children came running… and right behind them were a number of parents.
“Have a seat at the table everyone… after you’ve washed your face and hands,” he added in the direction of the kids. Several children ran off toward the bathrooms, followed by a few of the parents. Soon, everyone was seated around the table, but before they could begin, there was another knock on the door. Jim went to answer it.
“Max!” Jim said with a big smile, as he opened the door. “And Liz… Gee, I’m sorry, guys… You’re late. We finished everything off already. I wish you could have been here. It was delicious!”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Liz said politely, shaking her head. “We just came over to join in the celebrating before we go… while they’re finishing up with the ship.”
Max looked a little disappointed, but he smiled and agreed with Liz. Jim grinned and opened the door all the way.
“Get in here. We’re just getting started. I was pullin’ your leg. We’ve got a couple of chairs already pulled up to the table for you.”
Jim seated Max and Liz then took his own seat at the head of the table.
“Would you cut the turkey for us, Jim,” Kathleen asked. Jim smiled and picked up the carving knife and began to slice off different portions for each person according to his or her request.
“Smells good,” Tess said. “I can’t wait to see how it tastes.” She picked her fork up and started to take a bite, but then she noticed that Jim seemed to be watching her.
“Oh… I’m sorry. Was I supposed to wait… or something?”
“No, no!” Kathleen replied reassuringly. “Jim just was wondering how you would like it.”
“Oh.” Tess nodded and put the fork into her mouth. Then she closed her eyes.
“Mmmm! It’s delicious!” She took another bite. “I think this is really the best turkey I’ve ever had, Kathleen! Where did you find these on Antar? Did you bring them from Earth, Jim, like last year… with the sphere?”
“Nope,” Jim replied. “Got ‘em right here on Antar.”
“I didn’t know there were turkeys on Antar,” Tess said.
“Well, maybe not if you’re not at least three miles inside the Nan-Torel,” Jim replied with a grin. “These are Antarian Nan-Torel split-tail turkeys.”
“I never heard of them,” Tess said, taking another bite. “But they’re the best thing I think I’ve ever tasted on Antar!” She wiped her mouth and smiled. “And Antarian food is pretty good.”
With that high praise, everyone began to eat, and soon the table was buzzing with agreement regarding the culinary value of Jim’s “turkeys.”
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Jim,” Max said. “I think anything I wanted, I could probably send you into the Nan-Torel, and you would find it.”
There was some laughter and a lot of nodding heads.
“Well, here’s to Jim… and to Jim’s turkeys,” Dan Klein said, raising a glass of jubish.
“Yeah! Hear! Hear!” several others echoed, as everyone else raised their glasses in agreement.
Soon, the guests were all actively enjoying the abundant dishes of badas, grelliats, guma, and all the split-tail turkey they could eat, washing everything down with jubish, Cherry Coke, or Snapple laced with Tabasco sauce. Seated at another table, the children seemed to be enjoying the food as much as their parents, especially the amazing Nan-Torel split-tail turkey. Clearly, this dinner was going to go down as a major success, and no one could have been more pleased about it than Jim. After dinner, Kathleen served the traditional Antarian flaming flan, japo-mevanish, with Jaht-roo cookies; and those who wanted, had an after dinner cup of real Earth coffee that Jim had stashed away from his last trip to Earth.
“That was delicious,” Alex said. “Kathleen, you are the greatest! You can cook for me anytime!”
Kathleen smiled. “Thank you, Alex! You’re so kind.”
“Yes, he is,” Isabel said, looking up toward the ceiling.
“Iz, what in the world are you looking for,” Michael asked. Isabel smiled, seeming unoffended by the apparent bluntness of Michael’s question.
“Stars,” she replied simply with a giddy smile.
“Well, shouldn’t you be outside then?”
Isabel shook her head. “Nope.” She looked at Alex then reached up and appeared to take something from the air and place it into Alex’s hand. Alex opened his hand and looked.
“It’s beautiful, Iz!”
“What?” Michael said. “I don’t see anything.”
“The star,” Isabel said. “I reached up and got a star and gave it to Alex.” Isabel kissed Alex lightly on the lips.
At the children’s table, Zorel looked at Kryys, and his eyes widened. Kryys smiled back and looked amused. Mareeya, Ceelya, and the other children all smiled.
Then Max began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Michael asked. “No one told a joke.”
Max shook his head then broke out laughing again. He looked at Liz.
“I was thinking how beautiful you are, Liz.”
Liz smiled and leaned over to give Max a kiss.
“And that’s funny?” Michael asked with a puzzled expression.
“Yeah,” Diane Klein replied for Max. “I understand Max.” She leaned over and kissed Dan, who kissed her back rather passionately.
“Okay, that’s enough for me,” Zorel said. “I’m going out to play with Danyy. This is getting to be weird! A guy could die from all this sweetness!” He looked at the other children, but most of them just giggled as they watched Dan kiss Diane.
“Do you see the stars?” Isabel asked, pointing toward the ceiling. “They’re everywhere! They’re so beautiful! I can reach out and touch them.”
“They’re all for you,” Alex said. Isabel smiled and kissed Alex again.
“I see them, too,” Tess whispered.
“I don’t see anything,” her husband, Rayylar, said with a puzzled look. “I don’t either,” Kyle’s wife, Jeliya, said, searching in the air for something that she felt must be there in spite of her inability to see it.
“Reach up and you’ll touch them,” Tess said.
“Well, I didn’t see them before,” Jim said, “but now I do. Whoa! They’d make great target practice!”
Kathleen giggled then began to laugh.
“I didn’t think that was funny at all,” Michael said. “I don’t even see any stars. Stars! Stars! Where are you? Come out so I can see you!”
Kathleen grabbed Jim and pushed him down into his chair then sat across his lap. “The only target practice you’re getting, Jimbo, is with me.” She smiled and planted a big kiss on his lips, as Max began to laugh again.
“WHAT?” Michael asked.
“I have x-ray vision!” Max said. “I can see through Liz’s clothes! I can see through everyone’s clothes.” Michael looked at Max, at first with a look of disbelief, then with a look of amusement.
“Well, why didn’t you say so!” Michael started to laugh, too.
“Do you have x-ray vision, too, Michael?”
Michael shook his head then dissolved into laughter again. “No. I just think it’s so funny that you do, Max. That’s a riot!”
Maria pulled at Michael’s arm. “Let’s dance, cosmic lover! Jim’s singing for everyone.” She pulled Michael out into the middle of the floor, and they began to dance. Michael smiled and buried the side of his face in Maria’s hair, as he gave himself up to the moment with Maria.
Kathleen sat watching Jim sing, with a look of immense approval on her face.
“Do you like Jim’s music,” she asked Diane sitting beside her. Diane nodded.
“It’s all colors,” Kathleen said. “The notes are different colors when they come out of his mouth. Some of them are blue… some of them are red… and some of them are pure golden. If I catch them, I can rearrange them and make a new song.”
Diane nodded. “They’re beautiful, Kath! I really love Jim’s singing! Don’t you, Dan?”
Dan nodded. “I wish I could sing in colors.”
Diane kissed Dan again. “There are plenty of things I love about you, Dan Klein! You don’t need to sing, too.”
Rayylar seemed to be the only one who noticed that someone was knocking on the door. He walked to the door and opened it and found Varec standing there.
“Rayylar, Can I come in? I need to tell Zan something before he… before they… Oh, oh…”
“What’s going on, Varec?” Rayylar asked.
Varec breathed a deep sigh, as he looked around the room. Max and Liz were wrapped in each other’s arms on the sofa, Kyle seemed to have similar ideas with Jeliya nearby, Michael and Maria were lost in their dance, Kathleen sat enraptured as Jim sang love songs, Dan and Diane seemed to have found a corner to cuddle in, Alex and Isabel were catching stars for each other… between kisses, and Tess was attached to Rayylar’s arm like a tattoo.
“Well, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought,” Varec said. “My assistant made a slight mistake. She told Jim that his ‘turkey’ was safe to eat. It is safe, of course, if one is Antarian. But she did not take into consideration the differences of alien physiology.”
“In other words,” Rayylar said, “I’m the only one who’s normal right now… me and Jeliya? I thought it was some kind of odd Earth celebration ritual. I was afraid to say anything.”
“Well…” Varec looked at the amused children, “the children should be okay… and you two. They were all born here, so they shouldn’t have any unusual effects from eating the birds Jim caught. But Earth physiology, in particular, is… a bit different. I’m afraid anyone with Earth DNA who wasn’t born here would experience some kind of symptoms.”
Rayylar motioned around the room. “Like these symptoms?”
“Maybe,” Varec said. “Euphoria, giddiness, intoxication, possible hallucinations…”
“Will they be okay?”
Varec nodded. “It’ll wear off by the end of the day… or I could give them each one of the antidote shots I brought with me.” He looked around the room again and smiled slightly.
“Why don’t we just let it wear off naturally, huh, Rayylar?”
Rayylar looked at Tess wrapped around his arm like a tourniquet and sighed, then he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you and I can watch the children for a few hours, Varec.”
Two hours later, the room was basically quiet. The children had been sent back out to play. Max was asleep on the sofa with Liz lying on top of him. Her head rested on Max’s chest, and she was asleep, too, smiling. Michael and Maria had slowly collapsed onto the floor, bringing their dance to an end. Both were asleep on the floor. Michael’s arms were still around Maria, and both appeared to be in some very pleasant place judging from the smiles on their faces. Elsewhere around the room, the scene was repeated, with each couple seeming to be blissfully off in some land of happy dreams together. Though unaffected herself, Jeliya, lying on a sofa with Kyle’s arms wrapped around her, had decided to just go with it. Rayylar looked at Varec and shook his head.
“Who knew. Crazy alien physiology. I wonder how long they’ll sleep.” Varec shrugged.
**********
Liz smiled and hugged Kathleen then gave Jim a kiss on the cheek, as they accompanied Max and Liz to the door.
“That was… amazing,” Liz said, her face turning a little red in spite of herself. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dinner quite like that, Kath. It was very, very… tasty.” Liz hesitated as she thought for a moment. “Enjoy those leftovers, Jim. Looks like you’re going to be eating Nan-Torel turkey sandwiches for the next week at least.”
Jim’s eyes opened wide, then he half smiled as he looked around the room quickly… “Uh, Rayylar! Come here, buddy! You liked the turkey, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it was delicious!”
“Well, look, why don’t you and Tess take the rest of it home and have it for leftovers.”
“Are you sure?”
Kathleen nodded. “We’re sure, Rayylar. If we ever eat split-tail turkey again, Jim will have to arrest us both.”
“I thought you enjoyed it,” Rayylar said.
Kathleen turned slightly red. “I did… we did! Maybe a bit too much. You take it, Rayylar.
Rayylar looked at Tess for a moment then looked back at Kathleen and smiled. “Well, okay… Maybe Jeliya and Kyle would like to take some of it home, too…”
Jeliya looked at Kyle and broke into a grin. Rayylar smiled. “I thought so.”
Rayylar and Jeliya took the rest of the cut up turkey, thanked Jim and Kathleen, and left for their own homes. After the others had all gone, too, Jim sat down in his chair and leaned back with a sigh.
“That was fun, Kath. Want to do it again next year?”
Kathleen smiled and shook her head.
“I think everyone had a great time today, Kath. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.”
“Yeah,” Kathleen agreed. “They did enjoy themselves. No doubt about that.”
“And they loved the food, too,” Jim said. “Everyone said that the turkey tasted great.”
Kathleen nodded. “It was good.”
Jim picked up his copy of the Antar News and flipped the Video screen on.
“We’ve got a lot to be thankful for, Kath… you know? Good friends, health, a place where we can live and not be constantly harassed by neurotic, paranoid alien hunters… Odd, isn’t it? Here we are actually on an alien planet… and we’re free, our kids are free, we’re all happy, everyone’s our friend… while on our own planet we were hunted down and almost killed by our own species. Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?”
Kathleen nodded. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot. I was one of those paranoid, neurotic alien hunters.”
Jim smiled. “But you got your alien, Kath.”
“Yeah, I guess I did,” Kathleen agreed, sitting down on Jim’s lap and giving him a kiss. “I hope this is not too much torture for you.”
Jim grinned. “I think I can bear it.”
“By the way, Kath, what’s for supper tonight?”
Kathleen smiled. “Turkey soup.”
tbc
Coming next: The plan continues to rescue Liz, Alex, and the others from Earth, and Jim is convinced to go along on the mission.
.
Split-tail Turkey
Chapter 59
LVIX
Jim tossed the two big birds down on the porch at Kathleen’s feet, and Kathleen stared at the odd-looking, round, feathered creatures with long, split tails.
“What are those, Jim?”
“Turkeys.”
“No, no, no…” Kathleen said, shaking her head emphatically. “Max said there are no turkeys on Antar. Besides, those aren’t turkeys. I know turkeys when I see them, and that’s… not them! Those aren’t anything I’ve ever seen before, Jim.”
“Well, I guess they’re Antarian turkeys, Kath. Alien turkeys would look different, wouldn’t they?”
Kathleen hesitated, as she looked at the huge birds. They were roughly the size of turkeys… maybe a little bigger. And they were fat and had turkey-like feathers… but the tail was about four feet long… and split into two halves. And the head was odd-looking. It sort of looked like a turkey’s head… except for the color… and the fire-red eyes.
“If there were such a thing as an Antarian turkey, I guess this might be what one would look like,” Kathleen conceded.
“Well, there you go, Kath! We can invite the gang over for Thanksgiving dinner!”
“Are these edible, Jim?”
Jim shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
Kathleen’s eyebrows went up a couple of inches. “Maybe you’d better let Varec test one of them first, Jim. You wouldn’t want to poison all our guests.”
“Well, there won’t be that many guests, Kath. Max and Liz, Michael and Maria, and a few others will be on their way to Earth in some other dimension by tomorrow… to save their… alternate selves or something.”
“Well… you don’t want to poison ME, do you,” Kathleen said emphatically.
Jim smiled. “Actually, Hon, Varec’s assistant already checked them out for me. They’re edible… and nutritious, she says.”
“Okay,” Kathleen said hesitantly, “but how do they taste?”
Jim shrugged. “There’s got to be SOME mystery in life, Kath. Call the others… whoever’s still left in this dimension… Tell them we’re having Thanksgiving dinner here at the ranch. The entrée is… uh… Antarian… Nan-Torel split-tail turkey.”
Kathleen shook her head and picked one of the birds up by the feet. “I don’t want to guess who’s going to pluck these.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Jim said.
“Soooo gallant of you,” Kathleen replied with a grin. “You know, eating a lot of turkey always put me to sleep. It’s that enzyme or amino acid that’s in turkey meat… tryptophan… I hope these birds don’t have that…” Kathleen looked at the huge birds again and sighed. “And I hope they’ll fit in my oven!”
~Thanksgiving Day~
At the Valenti ranch, Jim finished setting the last plate on the table then walked to the door to answer yet another knock.
“Michael! Maria! I thought when we called… you guys said you were leaving for Dimension Why this morning.”
“Dimension Y,” Michael corrected. “Yeah, we were, but the guys over at the lab needed a few more hours to get the ship ready, and we heard you were cooking.”
Jim grinned. “Yep! You heard right. Come on in. Are Max and Liz comin’, too?”
“They may. Max was still hanging around the hangar watching them prep the new granolith, but I’ve got a feeling they’ll be here.”
“Kind of a last meal before the trip, huh?”
Michael nodded. “Yeah, a last meal for awhile among friends anyway. Little R2-D2 cooks up some pretty good meals on the ship, but he’s poor company.”
Kathleen walking into the room at that moment with a crock pot full of something that looked like mashed potatoes. “R2-D2? Is that what you named the little service droid on the new granolith now?”
Maria laughed. “No, that’s just what Michael calls him. We really should name him. He’s like part of the crew. Come to think of it, we really should name the ship. What kind of name is ‘new granolith?’ It’s not even a name… it’s just a description or something.”
Jim nodded. “A name for the ship would be a good thing… The ‘Antar I’ or something.
“Yeah, something original, though… and cool,” Maria said.
As they spoke, Kyle and Jeliya walked into the room. “Michael! Maria! You guy’s late getting off on your trip?”
“Yeah,” Michael replied with an acknowledging nod. “The space guys over at the lab needed a few more hours to finish stocking the ship and calculating the dimensional theory to get us where we’re going in the other dimension.”
“Well, I’m glad you could both join us,” Kyle said, patting Michael on the back. “Alex and Isabel are out back with Mareeya and Ceelya petting the yoriths. I think Danyy’s with them. Tess and Rayylar were around here somewhere with Jiba and Drel. They may have gone for a walk or they may be out back with Alex and Iz and their kids. And Taz is playing hide and seek with a few of the other children. Where’s Kryys… and Jayyd… and Zorel?”
Michael laughed. “They saw Taz and the others and headed off to play with them till dinner’s ready.”
“Well, Danyy will keep them occupied,” Kyle said. “His pawgor friend, Jung-Jo, is out there somewhere with his mate and their three babies. Only they’re not babies anymore.”
“Yeah, I know… I saw them a few days ago,” Michael said. “They’re like half grown already.”
Kathleen came into the dining room at that moment and placed a very large platter on the table with Jim’s help… “Well, guys, the dinner’s ready. Get everyone inside and have the kids wash their hands and we can start.”
“I’ll round up the kids,” Jim said. He stepped out the door onto the porch and yelled…
“DINNER’S READY! ANYONE NOT IN THE HOUSE IN TWO MINUTES GOES HUNGRY.”
Within seconds, children came running… and right behind them were a number of parents.
“Have a seat at the table everyone… after you’ve washed your face and hands,” he added in the direction of the kids. Several children ran off toward the bathrooms, followed by a few of the parents. Soon, everyone was seated around the table, but before they could begin, there was another knock on the door. Jim went to answer it.
“Max!” Jim said with a big smile, as he opened the door. “And Liz… Gee, I’m sorry, guys… You’re late. We finished everything off already. I wish you could have been here. It was delicious!”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Liz said politely, shaking her head. “We just came over to join in the celebrating before we go… while they’re finishing up with the ship.”
Max looked a little disappointed, but he smiled and agreed with Liz. Jim grinned and opened the door all the way.
“Get in here. We’re just getting started. I was pullin’ your leg. We’ve got a couple of chairs already pulled up to the table for you.”
Jim seated Max and Liz then took his own seat at the head of the table.
“Would you cut the turkey for us, Jim,” Kathleen asked. Jim smiled and picked up the carving knife and began to slice off different portions for each person according to his or her request.
“Smells good,” Tess said. “I can’t wait to see how it tastes.” She picked her fork up and started to take a bite, but then she noticed that Jim seemed to be watching her.
“Oh… I’m sorry. Was I supposed to wait… or something?”
“No, no!” Kathleen replied reassuringly. “Jim just was wondering how you would like it.”
“Oh.” Tess nodded and put the fork into her mouth. Then she closed her eyes.
“Mmmm! It’s delicious!” She took another bite. “I think this is really the best turkey I’ve ever had, Kathleen! Where did you find these on Antar? Did you bring them from Earth, Jim, like last year… with the sphere?”
“Nope,” Jim replied. “Got ‘em right here on Antar.”
“I didn’t know there were turkeys on Antar,” Tess said.
“Well, maybe not if you’re not at least three miles inside the Nan-Torel,” Jim replied with a grin. “These are Antarian Nan-Torel split-tail turkeys.”
“I never heard of them,” Tess said, taking another bite. “But they’re the best thing I think I’ve ever tasted on Antar!” She wiped her mouth and smiled. “And Antarian food is pretty good.”
With that high praise, everyone began to eat, and soon the table was buzzing with agreement regarding the culinary value of Jim’s “turkeys.”
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Jim,” Max said. “I think anything I wanted, I could probably send you into the Nan-Torel, and you would find it.”
There was some laughter and a lot of nodding heads.
“Well, here’s to Jim… and to Jim’s turkeys,” Dan Klein said, raising a glass of jubish.
“Yeah! Hear! Hear!” several others echoed, as everyone else raised their glasses in agreement.
Soon, the guests were all actively enjoying the abundant dishes of badas, grelliats, guma, and all the split-tail turkey they could eat, washing everything down with jubish, Cherry Coke, or Snapple laced with Tabasco sauce. Seated at another table, the children seemed to be enjoying the food as much as their parents, especially the amazing Nan-Torel split-tail turkey. Clearly, this dinner was going to go down as a major success, and no one could have been more pleased about it than Jim. After dinner, Kathleen served the traditional Antarian flaming flan, japo-mevanish, with Jaht-roo cookies; and those who wanted, had an after dinner cup of real Earth coffee that Jim had stashed away from his last trip to Earth.
“That was delicious,” Alex said. “Kathleen, you are the greatest! You can cook for me anytime!”
Kathleen smiled. “Thank you, Alex! You’re so kind.”
“Yes, he is,” Isabel said, looking up toward the ceiling.
“Iz, what in the world are you looking for,” Michael asked. Isabel smiled, seeming unoffended by the apparent bluntness of Michael’s question.
“Stars,” she replied simply with a giddy smile.
“Well, shouldn’t you be outside then?”
Isabel shook her head. “Nope.” She looked at Alex then reached up and appeared to take something from the air and place it into Alex’s hand. Alex opened his hand and looked.
“It’s beautiful, Iz!”
“What?” Michael said. “I don’t see anything.”
“The star,” Isabel said. “I reached up and got a star and gave it to Alex.” Isabel kissed Alex lightly on the lips.
At the children’s table, Zorel looked at Kryys, and his eyes widened. Kryys smiled back and looked amused. Mareeya, Ceelya, and the other children all smiled.
Then Max began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Michael asked. “No one told a joke.”
Max shook his head then broke out laughing again. He looked at Liz.
“I was thinking how beautiful you are, Liz.”
Liz smiled and leaned over to give Max a kiss.
“And that’s funny?” Michael asked with a puzzled expression.
“Yeah,” Diane Klein replied for Max. “I understand Max.” She leaned over and kissed Dan, who kissed her back rather passionately.
“Okay, that’s enough for me,” Zorel said. “I’m going out to play with Danyy. This is getting to be weird! A guy could die from all this sweetness!” He looked at the other children, but most of them just giggled as they watched Dan kiss Diane.
“Do you see the stars?” Isabel asked, pointing toward the ceiling. “They’re everywhere! They’re so beautiful! I can reach out and touch them.”
“They’re all for you,” Alex said. Isabel smiled and kissed Alex again.
“I see them, too,” Tess whispered.
“I don’t see anything,” her husband, Rayylar, said with a puzzled look. “I don’t either,” Kyle’s wife, Jeliya, said, searching in the air for something that she felt must be there in spite of her inability to see it.
“Reach up and you’ll touch them,” Tess said.
“Well, I didn’t see them before,” Jim said, “but now I do. Whoa! They’d make great target practice!”
Kathleen giggled then began to laugh.
“I didn’t think that was funny at all,” Michael said. “I don’t even see any stars. Stars! Stars! Where are you? Come out so I can see you!”
Kathleen grabbed Jim and pushed him down into his chair then sat across his lap. “The only target practice you’re getting, Jimbo, is with me.” She smiled and planted a big kiss on his lips, as Max began to laugh again.
“WHAT?” Michael asked.
“I have x-ray vision!” Max said. “I can see through Liz’s clothes! I can see through everyone’s clothes.” Michael looked at Max, at first with a look of disbelief, then with a look of amusement.
“Well, why didn’t you say so!” Michael started to laugh, too.
“Do you have x-ray vision, too, Michael?”
Michael shook his head then dissolved into laughter again. “No. I just think it’s so funny that you do, Max. That’s a riot!”
Maria pulled at Michael’s arm. “Let’s dance, cosmic lover! Jim’s singing for everyone.” She pulled Michael out into the middle of the floor, and they began to dance. Michael smiled and buried the side of his face in Maria’s hair, as he gave himself up to the moment with Maria.
Kathleen sat watching Jim sing, with a look of immense approval on her face.
“Do you like Jim’s music,” she asked Diane sitting beside her. Diane nodded.
“It’s all colors,” Kathleen said. “The notes are different colors when they come out of his mouth. Some of them are blue… some of them are red… and some of them are pure golden. If I catch them, I can rearrange them and make a new song.”
Diane nodded. “They’re beautiful, Kath! I really love Jim’s singing! Don’t you, Dan?”
Dan nodded. “I wish I could sing in colors.”
Diane kissed Dan again. “There are plenty of things I love about you, Dan Klein! You don’t need to sing, too.”
Rayylar seemed to be the only one who noticed that someone was knocking on the door. He walked to the door and opened it and found Varec standing there.
“Rayylar, Can I come in? I need to tell Zan something before he… before they… Oh, oh…”
“What’s going on, Varec?” Rayylar asked.
Varec breathed a deep sigh, as he looked around the room. Max and Liz were wrapped in each other’s arms on the sofa, Kyle seemed to have similar ideas with Jeliya nearby, Michael and Maria were lost in their dance, Kathleen sat enraptured as Jim sang love songs, Dan and Diane seemed to have found a corner to cuddle in, Alex and Isabel were catching stars for each other… between kisses, and Tess was attached to Rayylar’s arm like a tattoo.
“Well, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought,” Varec said. “My assistant made a slight mistake. She told Jim that his ‘turkey’ was safe to eat. It is safe, of course, if one is Antarian. But she did not take into consideration the differences of alien physiology.”
“In other words,” Rayylar said, “I’m the only one who’s normal right now… me and Jeliya? I thought it was some kind of odd Earth celebration ritual. I was afraid to say anything.”
“Well…” Varec looked at the amused children, “the children should be okay… and you two. They were all born here, so they shouldn’t have any unusual effects from eating the birds Jim caught. But Earth physiology, in particular, is… a bit different. I’m afraid anyone with Earth DNA who wasn’t born here would experience some kind of symptoms.”
Rayylar motioned around the room. “Like these symptoms?”
“Maybe,” Varec said. “Euphoria, giddiness, intoxication, possible hallucinations…”
“Will they be okay?”
Varec nodded. “It’ll wear off by the end of the day… or I could give them each one of the antidote shots I brought with me.” He looked around the room again and smiled slightly.
“Why don’t we just let it wear off naturally, huh, Rayylar?”
Rayylar looked at Tess wrapped around his arm like a tourniquet and sighed, then he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you and I can watch the children for a few hours, Varec.”
Two hours later, the room was basically quiet. The children had been sent back out to play. Max was asleep on the sofa with Liz lying on top of him. Her head rested on Max’s chest, and she was asleep, too, smiling. Michael and Maria had slowly collapsed onto the floor, bringing their dance to an end. Both were asleep on the floor. Michael’s arms were still around Maria, and both appeared to be in some very pleasant place judging from the smiles on their faces. Elsewhere around the room, the scene was repeated, with each couple seeming to be blissfully off in some land of happy dreams together. Though unaffected herself, Jeliya, lying on a sofa with Kyle’s arms wrapped around her, had decided to just go with it. Rayylar looked at Varec and shook his head.
“Who knew. Crazy alien physiology. I wonder how long they’ll sleep.” Varec shrugged.
**********
Liz smiled and hugged Kathleen then gave Jim a kiss on the cheek, as they accompanied Max and Liz to the door.
“That was… amazing,” Liz said, her face turning a little red in spite of herself. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dinner quite like that, Kath. It was very, very… tasty.” Liz hesitated as she thought for a moment. “Enjoy those leftovers, Jim. Looks like you’re going to be eating Nan-Torel turkey sandwiches for the next week at least.”
Jim’s eyes opened wide, then he half smiled as he looked around the room quickly… “Uh, Rayylar! Come here, buddy! You liked the turkey, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it was delicious!”
“Well, look, why don’t you and Tess take the rest of it home and have it for leftovers.”
“Are you sure?”
Kathleen nodded. “We’re sure, Rayylar. If we ever eat split-tail turkey again, Jim will have to arrest us both.”
“I thought you enjoyed it,” Rayylar said.
Kathleen turned slightly red. “I did… we did! Maybe a bit too much. You take it, Rayylar.
Rayylar looked at Tess for a moment then looked back at Kathleen and smiled. “Well, okay… Maybe Jeliya and Kyle would like to take some of it home, too…”
Jeliya looked at Kyle and broke into a grin. Rayylar smiled. “I thought so.”
Rayylar and Jeliya took the rest of the cut up turkey, thanked Jim and Kathleen, and left for their own homes. After the others had all gone, too, Jim sat down in his chair and leaned back with a sigh.
“That was fun, Kath. Want to do it again next year?”
Kathleen smiled and shook her head.
“I think everyone had a great time today, Kath. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.”
“Yeah,” Kathleen agreed. “They did enjoy themselves. No doubt about that.”
“And they loved the food, too,” Jim said. “Everyone said that the turkey tasted great.”
Kathleen nodded. “It was good.”
Jim picked up his copy of the Antar News and flipped the Video screen on.
“We’ve got a lot to be thankful for, Kath… you know? Good friends, health, a place where we can live and not be constantly harassed by neurotic, paranoid alien hunters… Odd, isn’t it? Here we are actually on an alien planet… and we’re free, our kids are free, we’re all happy, everyone’s our friend… while on our own planet we were hunted down and almost killed by our own species. Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?”
Kathleen nodded. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot. I was one of those paranoid, neurotic alien hunters.”
Jim smiled. “But you got your alien, Kath.”
“Yeah, I guess I did,” Kathleen agreed, sitting down on Jim’s lap and giving him a kiss. “I hope this is not too much torture for you.”
Jim grinned. “I think I can bear it.”
“By the way, Kath, what’s for supper tonight?”
Kathleen smiled. “Turkey soup.”
tbc
Coming next: The plan continues to rescue Liz, Alex, and the others from Earth, and Jim is convinced to go along on the mission.
.
Last edited by Island Breeze on Sun Jan 02, 2005 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.