<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Ke’cjes
Chapter 39
XXXIX
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The young pilots maneuvered their sliders over the nearest dry land inside the dome and set the vehicles down, then they opened their own doors and got out, letting the others out after them. Max and Michael got out quickly and found themselves face to face with the six Ke’cjes who had followed them into the dome…
“Who are you,” one of the Ke’cjes, a surprisingly good-looking young man, asked.
“I am Zan… King of Antar,” the Aquarian Max said, “We came here to meet you… and, we hope… to be your friends.”
The Ke’cje appeared doubtful. “You are King Zan?”
“I am.”
“He is,” Maria agreed, vouching for him.
“We would like to see Ta’lan,” Liz said.
The first Ke’cje looked at Liz suspiciously… “How do you know Ta’lan?”
“We… well, some of us… met her before. Actually, we met her double in another dimension, not your Ta’lan. But we became friends, and we wanted to meet her and have her meet our… uh, doubles here.”
“We come in friendship,” the Aquarian Max said, “Just as our doubles became friends with your people in another dimension.”
“The Ke’cjes have no friends… outside of our valley,” the second Ke’cje retorted, “We are feared; others are suspicious of us, because we are different.”
Max nodded. “I know. Rath and I were once feared for the same reason… so were Vilandra and Ava.”
“But you are like the others,” the first Ke’cje said, “Why would they fear you?”
“We lived on another planet before we returned here to retake the throne from Kivar. The people on that planet had no powers of the sort that most Antarians consider routine and normal.”
The Ke’cje nodded. “So they feared you… and you had to keep your lives and your identities closely guarded… and secret.”
“Exactly,” Michael said, realizing that the Ke’cje was also telling him why they, as a people, were secretive and guarded and kept to themselves in their own valley.
“I cannot change the nature of people… nor can I promise you that I can do that,” Max said, “But I can promise you friendship and peace with the royal family and our friends… and a government that will not see you as its enemies but as friends and allies… if that is what you will be.”
The Ke’cjes looked at each other and then nodded. “We will take you to Ta’lan. Come with us.”
The six shapeshifters walked off down a trail, and their visitors followed. As they walked, the outsiders were surprised to see things they never expected to see here… trees … and flowers… beautiful flowers… on the ground and on the trees!
“These are real!” the Aquarian Liz whispered breathlessly, smelling and touching the garden flowers and staring at the trees. Omigod, they’re real!”
“Where did you get these,” the Aquarian Michael asked, surprised, “These things disappeared a hundred thousand years ago when the last land sank beneath the sea. I’ve only seen them in history books… and painted plaster replicas in museums.”
The shapeshifters smiled, perhaps for the first time since the outsiders had arrived… “We have had them… always. Our people brought trees and flowers with them when the first dome was built, almost a hundred thousand years ago. We have protected them and propagated them through the centuries. They are our treasures.”
“Fantastic!” Professor Arturo exclaimed, genuinely impressed.
Wade reached up to smell some of the fragrant flowers on a tree branch that was hanging down near the walk.
“Uh, I wouldn’t do that… not those flowers,” Liz from the New Granolith said, but Alex stopped her, shaking his head… “Don’t tell her.”
“Alex!”
“I have my reasons.”
“Unh… I don’t know Alex…”
“Trust me, Liz!”
Liz sighed. “Well, alright… maybe… I don’t know…”
“You know you trust me…” Alex said confidently, flashing Liz a big grin. Liz gave him a friendly shove… “Don’t get too cocky, Alex. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do.”
“These trees smell divine,” Wade said, spinning around several times and doing a little pirouette. “I could live here and be happy forever!”
“Delightful indeed!” Professor Arturo said, as the scent of the trees’ blossoms reached him, too. “I don’t believe I’ve ever smelled anything like it! The fragrance is simply irresistible!”
“I like it,” Remmy said, starting to look a little misty-eyed and dreamy.
Quinn smiled and just looked happy… a little too happy. Maggie was hanging onto him as though she was afraid he would go “poof” if she let go. The Aquarian Antarians also seemed to be getting a bit overly happy. The two young slider pilots were doing pirouettes under the trees with Wade now, and Maria was hanging onto Michael, with a dreamy look in her eyes. The Aquarian Liz even seemed to be doting on her Max more than usual, if that was possible, and he was smiling from ear to ear.
A little further down the walk, Professor Arturo and Remmy started doing pirouettes with the girls, and Professor Arturo performed a beautiful saute followed by an Arabesque that no one would have thought him capable of. The six shapeshifters looked at each other and smiled, then they looked at the Aquarian Max, the king… “Did you really come in peace?”
“We’re a peaceful people,” Max said, a bit giddily, “We do not wish harm on anyone.”
“Are you afraid of us?”
“Naw!” Max waved his hand dismissively and smiled, “I’ve seen things before… scarier things. We just want to get to know you and be friends.”
The shapeshifters smiled.
“Well, I was afraid of those big honkin’ things you guys turned into out there in the water,” Remmy said. “I thought you were going to crush us.”
“Are you afraid now?” one of the shapeshifters asked.
“Nooooo…” Remmy giggled, putting an arm around the guy as though they were best friends who had been drinking together all night in a bar. “I like you! You’re COOL!”
“Cool is good,” Max from the New Granolith said, smiling and at the same time breathing as shallowly as he could and keeping one hand over his nose. The other members of the New Granolith’s crew were doing the same thing. This made the shapeshifters smile again…
“So some of you HAVE been to our valley before.”
“Oh yeah! We have!” Max said through his fingers. Liz nodded and smiled, keeping one hand over her nose and taking short breaths.
“Quinn,” Wade said, suddenly taking Quinn by his free arm, “Let’s get married… right here… right now.”
“He’s mine!” Maggie objected, pulling him back by the other arm, “He loves me!” Maggie smiled at Quinn… a bit predatorily, it seemed to Wade.
“He loves me more,” Wade said, pulling Quinn the other way again.
“Girls! Girls!” Quinn exclaimed, “Don’t pull me apart. There’s enough of me to go around.”
Wade shook her head vehemently… “I want you all! I have to have you all!”
“Can’t have him,” Maggie said, pulling him back.
“Quinn,” Wade pouted, looking at him with puppy dog eyes, which she would probably never live down if she remembered any of this after it was over.
Maggie reached around Quinn with both arms and pulled him against herself tightly.
Wade took Quinn’s arm and tried to pull him away, but instead, slowly, she collapsed and crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Maggie smiled victoriously, staggered for a moment, then fell to the ground, too. Quinn looked back and forth at the two girls, deeply concerned but too dizzy to lean over for fear he would keep going and plow head first into the ground. Two shapeshifters picked the girls up, and another supported Quinn…
“They’ll be fine,” one of them said, smiling, “Once we’re past the Qu’rosk trees.”
“We know,” Liz from the New Granolith said.
Just as the Ke’cje had promised, once they were past the fragrant, flowering Qu’rosk trees, both Wade and Maggie began to stir and reawaken, and Quinn regained his strength. The others, too, soon returned to normal. It was impossible to know exactly how much any of them remembered. If any of them did remember anything, they probably hoped that no one else did… or would… ever!
The shapeshifters led their visitors over a footbridge and a circular fishpond then along a small but quaint, neatly kept little lane for a distance of about six blocks, stopping in front of a nice-looking if surprisingly modest-sized house. It was only at this moment that Max and the others realized what they were seeing… Houses! Real, honest to goodness houses! Granted, they were under a huge dome… the whole valley was… but these were actual houses, just like the ones they had seen in the Ke’cje Valley on land in the other dimension. The house in front of them had an upstairs and a downstairs and looked like it might have two, maybe three bedrooms… assuming it was built similarly to an earth home for its size.
The shapeshifter touched a small module on the door, and a brief lilting melody played softly inside the house. A moment later, Ta’lan came to the door and opened it by touching her finger to something that looked like a lock. Then she led the group into a living room or parlor and motioned toward several comfortable-looking chairs and a sofa…
“Please! Sit down. Be comfortable. I heard that you were coming. Word travels fast here.”
Everyone sat down, and Ta’lan dismissed herself momentarily. Jung-Jo stretched out on the floor beside Jim and yawned. The inside of the house seemed much larger than the outside would have suggested. On the far side of the spacious living room, there was a large convex window that reached all the way to the floor. It looked like a clear, solid membrane. To their left, there was a wide semicircular stairway with a banister that looked surprisingly earthlike. The chairs, too, were fairly normal, though their design was clearly alien. The sofa was long, perhaps fourteen feet, and had a large number of contours that really didn’t seem to match any known body shape… well, any that they had ever seen, anyway, though the overall look was very interesting… even elegant in an alien sort of way. Each end of the sofa had a very ornate arm, partially wrapped in a plush, soft, velvety fabric. It was very much like the sofa in the other Ta’lan’s house, in the other dimension… in fact, the whole house was very much like the other Ta’lan’s house in the other dimension.
Ta’lan returned to the parlor with a large tray that held numerous very tall, thin, flute-like glasses filled with a bluish-amber liquid. The New Granolith crew and the Aquarian Antarians… even those who had never been to the Ke’cje’s Valley… knew what it was. They had seen it before. But the Sliders had no idea.
“Are you sure this is safe for humans,” Remmy asked, holding the glass up and examining the sometimes bluish, sometimes amber liquid in the light.
Max from the New Granolith nodded and grinned. “It’s da’nish. Try it.”
Remmy took a deep breath and tilted the glass bottoms up, while Max watched and smiled at the look that came over his face. Then Remmy took another deep breath and slowly let it out again… “Wow! That was good!”
With that endorsement, the other Sliders tried it, too, most of them only sipping it.
Ta’lan picked up another tray and passed it around. It looked like large cookies.
“Qnist’as,” Liz from the New Granolith said, remembering having had them in the other dimension… “They keep you from getting plastered on the da’nish.”
Ta’lan nodded. “They keep you sober, yes… and they also go well with da’nish.”
Each of them took a Qnist’a and ate it.
“Is everything in this valley intoxicating,” Maggie asked.
Ta’lan smiled. “Only to outsiders. Long ago, we became accustomed to the Qu’rosk trees… and we always eat Qnist’as with our da’nish. We rarely get outsiders here in the valley… but when we do, the Qu’rosk trees always let us know their intentions. The fragrance of the Qu’rosk flowers makes people talkative… and amazingly honest.”
“Cool! lie detector trees!” Remmy said, laughing, “I’d love to see them!”
Ta’lan smiled. “You did.”
“I did? When?”
“On the way here,” Liz from the New Granolith said.
“I don’t remember that,” Remmy said, looking puzzled. “What did I say?”
Liz smiled. “Don’t worry, Remmy. We won’t tell.”
“What did I say?” Remmy asked again, looking more worried now than before. Everyone laughed, but the truth is, no one remembered what Remmy had said… or even if he had said anything at all. They didn’t even remember what THEY had said or done on the way here… except the crew of the New Granolith, because they had visited the Ke’cje Valley in the other dimension and knew to take shallow breaths and keep one hand over their noses while near Qu’rosk trees.
“We met someone in the other dimension,” Liz said cautiously… “A Ke’cje… His name was Rahn…”
Ta’lan smiled… “My son! Rahn is my son… my adopted son.”
Liz smiled… “Rahn was with us for a long time in the first alternate dimension we went to. He helped our doubles there escape from enemies who wanted to kill them… or worse. He had been a prisoner there himself, but he escaped. We all love Rahn! He was amazing!”
Ta’lan’s face lit up. “Rahn is like that. He never really liked being isolated in our valley. He wanted to get out and see things. There is much to see here in our valley… especially for a shape shifter… but Rahn wanted more. He wanted to see the universe. He went with the first group in search of a place to hide the royal four, but he was captured after his ship was damaged, and he spent years in a bad place. He has never told me about it… except that it was… unpleasant.”
“He… he made it back then… right?” Liz asked hopefully.
Ta’lan nodded, much to everyone’s relief. “Rahn escaped, using his shape shifting ability, and he was able to repair his damaged ship and return home. I fear that he is not cured of his desire to wander and discover the universe, however.”
Liz smiled. “Rahn was pretty unique.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Ta’lan agreed. “But I wouldn’t change Rahn even if I could. He is who he is, and that is what I love about him… everything that he is… is who he is.”
Liz looked at Maria, Isabel, and the others. They were all nodding.
“I really loved watching that little roadrunner come and go,” Maria said with a grin.
“That’s a kind of bird on Eluymer,” Liz explained, noticing Ta’lan’s puzzled look… “Rahn delivered messages sometimes to our doubles’ parents and to the sheriff, who was their friend. Rahn would usually turn himself into a roadrunner to deliver the messages.”
“Or a bat… in the caves…” Isabel said.
“That was cool!” Michael agreed. “Rahn was pretty cool.”
“And that is good, right?” Ta’lan asked.
“Very good,” Alex replied, “Cool is very good.”
Ta’lan smiled.
“So is hot… sometimes,” Isabel added.
Ta’lan smiled. “Yes, Rahn told me that it is a confusing planet.”
The others laughed.
“How long can you stay with us,” Ta’lan asked, “I am sure that Rahn would like to meet you and hear about your adventures with his double in the other dimension. He loves that kind of thing.”
“We can’t stay very long, I’m afraid,” the Aquarian Max said, “There is the kingdom to attend to.”
“Can you stay one night?”
Max looked at Liz, and Liz grinned. He shrugged then nodded… “It looks like it.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>></center>
Dinner with the Ke’cje shapeshifters had been a lavish affair. It stands to reason that beings who are capable of altering their shapes to almost unimaginable forms would also be able, for that very reason, to locate and capture some of the most reclusive… and succulent… sea creatures. There had been a great many items on the table that the non-shapeshifting Aquarian Antarians did not recognize, and Max and Michael made a pact to find several of them later for their own table, but there is a good chance that they never would find most of them. They weren’t capable of turning into giant boring augur worms and finding and extracting the cores of gigantic coral oysters, which lay deeply buried in the hard rocky substrata beneath a hundred feet of sand under the Golden Sea… or of shapeshifting into a creature capable of diving to the deepest depths and chasing down the elusive… and dangerous… Antarian Black-Fanged Lobster. So dinner with the shapeshifters was likely to forever remain a unique event.
After dinner, they had spent some time talking with their guests as a group and then had gravitated into smaller groups, each group according to its separate interests. No one had said, “Okay, let’s break up into groups,” it had just happened, as different individuals, talking with different Ke’cjes, followed their own discussions.
The Aquarian Max and Liz walked into the parlor with Ta’lan and found most of the New Granolith’s crew sitting around in a circle on the floor with an odd-looking bird in the center of the circle. Jung-Jo watched curiously from the side.
“I think the tail should be a little longer,” Maria, of the New Granolith’s crew, said. The bird complied, and the tail increased in length.
“Oh! And the wings of roadrunners are a little shorter,” Tess said.
The bird reduced the size of its wings.
“But Rahn used to make his wings longer,” Isabel pointed out… “In order to fly long distances. Roadrunners can’t fly very far.”
“Unless they’re Rahn,” Alex said with a grin. The others smiled and nodded.
“Okay,” Maria said, “You can make the wings longer again.”
“That looks like Rahn to me,” Isabel exclaimed, “That looks just like him!”
The bird immediately began to twist and rise then took on the shape of a man.
Liz nodded. “That was what your double looked like in the other dimension… when he delivered messages to Jeff Parker or to Sheriff Jim Valenti for our doubles in that dimension.”
“Interesting,” Rahn said, “It would seem that I… he… had quite an adventure in that dimension. I was fascinated by the bat.”
“You did that one perfectly!” Alex said.
“Too perfectly… ewww,” Maria agreed.
The others laughed.
“And the red-tailed hawk… Did he become that one often,” Rahn asked.
“A few times,” Maria said, nodding, “And once he turned into a big snake and wrapped himself around that horrible low-life Judge… uh… Judge Lewis. We were wishing he would have eaten him, but he didn’t.
“Even shapeshifters can get indigestion,” Rahn said seriously. The others all looked at each other then started laughing. Liz nodded. “You’re right, Rahn! That would have been a rotten meal!”
“Rahn has a sense of humor!” Alex said with a grin, “I love it!”
“Of course he has a sense of humor!” Liz said, “Remember in the other dimension?”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, Rahn had a sort of dry, subdued sense of humor. He would seem totally serious, and then it just hit you and you had to laugh. Rahn never ha-ha’d it. He just had this natural, low-key humor about him… I mean, it was a good humor, you know. He was funny, he just did it so that… that… you didn’t realize he was doing it… and that made it even funnier.”
“He knew he was doing it, though,” Liz said, “It was intentional.”
“I know,” Alex agreed, “It was just Rahn’s sense of humor.”
“It would appear that this Rahn has that same sense of humor,” the Aquarian Liz said, joining in the conversation with the group from the New Granolith.
“He does,” Ta’lan agreed. “Rahn can be very serious and very funny at the same time. I love that about him.”
Rahn smiled.
“I still can’t believe how good that meal was,” Tess said to Ta’lan. “I never heard of half of the things I ate, but I loved them all!”
Wade nodded. “At least you’ve heard of half of them. We never heard of any of them… And they WERE great! I wish we had them all on earth!”
“Do you know how Rahn makes his living,” one of the other shapeshifter men asked.
“How,” several of the outsiders asked at the same time.
“He supplies the Xor aspic for the entire valley.”
“You mean that stuff that you put on all the food to season it with?” Liz asked.
The shapeshifter smiled. “Yes. Do you want to know how Rahn gets the Xor aspic… and why no one else can?”
The others all nodded.
The shapeshifter grinned, and Rahn looked a little uncomfortable. “He turns himself into a froyylic. The Xor aspic is only found at a depth of precisely 4,378 rys… no more, no less. It is produced by a communal creature called a sharv shrimp, which is somewhat dangerous. Sharv shrimps are not large, but they have a long, pointed piece of shell on their head and they will ram it into you and poison you. Sharv shrimps attack as a group and can incapacitate almost any creature… including a shapeshifter… quickly. The only creature that can get past the sharv shrimps is a froyylic. The froyylic is not very large, either, or even very fierce, but it gives off an odor that the sharv shrimps find intolerable. They abandon their Xor to the froyylic, and the froyylic would eat it… except for one thing…”
“What is that,” Michael asked.
“The froyylic is the favorite food of the tyar’ma’zot, a very large, fierce creature that is not the least bit offended by the froyylic’s bad smell. The sharv shrimps always make their Xor in a cave where there is a tyar’ma’zot… or perhaps the tyar’ma’zot moves in with the sharv shrimps. Either way, they have a mutually beneficial relationship. The sharv shrimps’ Xor attracts froyylics; and the tyar’ma’zot happily eats the froyylics. Then the sharv shrimps return and go about their business of making Xor until the next stupid froyylic shows up. I would guess that one froyylic gets a taste of Xor for every thousand that wind up in the tyar’ma’zot’s belly.
“I am not stupid,” Rahn said insistently, “I have a way to get the Xor… AND keep my life. I have not yet wound up in the tyar’ma’zot’s belly.”
“He has a way,” the other shapeshifter agreed. “He’s not telling anyone else what it is, though.”
Rahn smiled. “It is my secret.”
“A valuable secret,” the other shapeshifter agreed, “Xor sells for 3,400 Coruns… for a very small flask.”
Michael whistled… “Seven thousand dollars! That’s more expensive than Corvian brandy!”
“One does not have to get past a hungry tyar’ma’zot and ten thousand poisonous sharv shrimps to have Corvian brandy,” Rahn pointed out, logically. “Nor do they have to find the Corvian brandy at a depth of precisely 4,378 rys.”
“Wow,” Wade said softly, “If I’d known the food I was eating was seasoned with seven-thousand-dollar seasoning…”
“Well, I don’t make my mother pay for it,” Rahn said… “Just these guys over here… and everyone else.”
“The Xor has a market on several other planets, as well as in our valley,” the other shapeshifter pointed out. Rahn does pretty well for himself. Some day we’re going to find out how he does it… if he doesn’t get eaten by a tyar’ma’zot first.
Rahn smiled. “Just be careful that you do not get eaten by the tyar’ma’zot while trying to find out how I do it.”
“Is this one of those Don’t try this at home… we’re the professionals kind of things,” Alex asked with a grin.
Rahn smiled. “I am the only one who can get the Xor aspic and not get eaten by the tyar’ma’zot. Others have tried it. They are not here to tell what mistakes they made.”
“Where are they,” Rayylar asked.
Tess elbowed him gently in the ribs.
“Oh… Oh!”
The other shapeshifters laughed. “None of us have tried it. We value our lives more than our greed. The shapeshifters who were eaten by the tyar’ma’zots were from two other planets… and they were not Ke’cjes. Actually, they’re not shapeshifters either… anymore.”
“Ewww,” Maria groaned, “Do all men get a kick out of talking about gory stuff?”
“I thought it was interesting!” Michael said.
Max nodded. “Me, too. It’s not like he went into details about how the tyar’ma’zot bit them in two and chewed them up or ripped their heads off or anything.”
Liz whacked Max on the arm. “Max!”
Max smiled at Michael, and Michael grinned.
“Men are the same wherever you go,” Tess said, “It’s a fact of life. Get used to it!”
In fact, what was true was that everyone there was feeling comfortable with each other. New friends… and lifelong friendships… were being made. Before the night was over, Ta’lan and Max had signed a hand written agreement confirming their status as allies and encouraging understanding and friendship between their peoples. Max agreed that the Ke’cjes were entitled to their own local government, and the Ke’cjes confirmed that they were still, first and foremost, Antarians, and loyal to the king… as long as someone like Kivar did not come back and take over again. All in all, it had been a very successful, and historic, trip.
<center>End of Chapter 39
tbc…</center>
Coming Next: The Last Shopping Trip
Sliding Into Antar - (CC, ALL, TEEN) 01/01/06 COMPLETE
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Forum Moderators
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Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Here are some links, Brianna, and welcome! I love new readers! 
All of my stories except Swamp Witch can be found at this link:
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/229516/
Just scroll down the list and click on the story you want to read. The order listed is in reverse, though...
Altered Time – Destiny In The Stars is Book #1,
Life In The Stars is Book #2,
Children Of The Universe is Book #3,
The Night The Drams Died and The Four Faces Of Rath were written somewhat at the same time, but I think reading
The Night The Dreams Died before TFFOR is preferable.
And Sliding Into Antar is the most recent entry into this series.
Departure By Another Route, Buffy Goes To Antar, Darth Maxwell, The Adventures Of Sandy, The Fall Of A King, and Swamp Witch (A Halloween Special viewtopic.php?t=11806) are short stories that are not actually part of the Altered Time series.
And Star Trails to Antar is a collection of individual chapters from the first 3 books of the Altered Time series, edited to stand alone as individual stories.
Besides the site listed above, most of my stories can be found at the following and some other sites:
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=374
http://p198.ezboard.com/fthespoilerslut ... D=28.topic
http://p208.ezboard.com/frandomroswellr ... 2861.topic
http://p080.ezboard.com/froswellninalan ... ID=7.topic
viewtopic.php?t=3518
viewtopic.php?t=1579
http://p076.ezboard.com/ftheeraserroomf ... =124.topic
http://p083.ezboard.com/froswellfanficl ... 1307.topic
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=557
viewtopic.php?t=11806
All of my stories except Swamp Witch can be found at this link:
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/229516/
Just scroll down the list and click on the story you want to read. The order listed is in reverse, though...
Altered Time – Destiny In The Stars is Book #1,
Life In The Stars is Book #2,
Children Of The Universe is Book #3,
The Night The Drams Died and The Four Faces Of Rath were written somewhat at the same time, but I think reading
The Night The Dreams Died before TFFOR is preferable.
And Sliding Into Antar is the most recent entry into this series.
Departure By Another Route, Buffy Goes To Antar, Darth Maxwell, The Adventures Of Sandy, The Fall Of A King, and Swamp Witch (A Halloween Special viewtopic.php?t=11806) are short stories that are not actually part of the Altered Time series.
And Star Trails to Antar is a collection of individual chapters from the first 3 books of the Altered Time series, edited to stand alone as individual stories.
Besides the site listed above, most of my stories can be found at the following and some other sites:
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=374
http://p198.ezboard.com/fthespoilerslut ... D=28.topic
http://p208.ezboard.com/frandomroswellr ... 2861.topic
http://p080.ezboard.com/froswellninalan ... ID=7.topic
viewtopic.php?t=3518
viewtopic.php?t=1579
http://p076.ezboard.com/ftheeraserroomf ... =124.topic
http://p083.ezboard.com/froswellfanficl ... 1307.topic
http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=557
viewtopic.php?t=11806
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Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Last
Shopping Trip
Chapter 40
XL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The young pilots navigated their sliders back into the water and took them down to the level where they had originally come into the Ke’cjes’ valley, underneath the dome… and moments later, they were back in the open sea.
Just ahead of them were the mountains that surrounded the Ke’cjes’ valley, and the slider pilots began to ascend in order to go over the mountains, as they had before. But as they began to rise, Max noticed that they were once again surrounded by the huge ray-like creatures with long trailing filaments…
“Looks like our friends are back.”
“What do you think they want,” Michael asked, as the creatures circled the sliders several times.
“I think they want us to follow them,” Max replied, motioning to the pilot of their slider to follow. She nodded and turned the slider in the direction the ray-like creatures were swimming. The other slider followed; but after a few moments, some of the passengers became concerned…
“Uh… we’re going to run into the side of that mountain up ahead,” Kyle said, “If we don’t turn some way or other soon.”
In spite of appearances, the ray-like creatures continued straight toward the cliffs. But they had no intention of running the sliders into the mountain; they were actually heading for a very large, and well concealed, cave. Liz was the first to see it and quickly pointed it out to the others…
“They’re showing us a way through the mountain.”
The rays swam into the cave, and the two sliders followed, turning on their lights in order to see in the darkness. The cave was huge inside; but most surprisingly, it appeared to be natural, not a man-made or Antarian-made phenomenon. All around the two sliders, there were huge stalactites and stalagmites that were undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of years old… formed when these mountains were still above sea level. But now, strange sea creatures swam among the cave’s many outcrops and made their homes in them. The slider pilots followed the rays as they turned a bend, in the darkness, and they noticed thousands of little eyes watching them from among the projecting calcium and lime deposits…
And one not-so-little set of eyes…
“Look out!” Kyle yelled, but the pilots had already seen the thirty-foot-long flopping creature with eyes larger than a semi tractor-trailer truck’s tires, and they skillfully avoided it. Though impressive in size and appearance, the creature made no effort to attack them. In fact, it seemed to be looking for a hiding place… probably from the huge rays that were leading the sliders through the tunnel-like cave.
In only six minutes, the sliders emerged on the outer side of the mountain. The cave’s opening on this side projected downward and was all but invisible to anyone looking straight at the mountain. And as if this were not enough, it was further concealed by a large rocky outcrop above it and tons of Antarian pink and green corals, making it even better hidden than the one on the valley side had been.
“No one would ever find that entrance,” Michael said, shaking his head in wonder… “Unless they knew exactly where it was.”
“Well, going through the mountain just saved us twenty minutes,” Max said, smiling.
The huge rays rolled over and headed back toward the cave, and the sliders’ occupants waved a last goodbye as the creatures seemed to simply disappear into a solid mountain. Moments later, Wade watched the mountains fade and disappear in the distance behind them… just as the domed valley had on the other side…
“That was fun! I still can’t believe I’m really on an alien world… and that I met a real alien shapeshifter. I didn’t even know they actually existed. But Rahn was so cool! And Ta’lan! And those guys that change into the ray things! I wish the Ke’cjes were hooked up to the internet… It’s a shame that they can’t access the worldwide web.”
Quinn smiled. “Yeah, I heard you suggest to Rahn that they form an Antarian-Ke’cje web and connect it to earth’s web so you could chat with them from time to time. Do the Ke’cjes have computers?”
Liz from the New Granolith nodded. “On our Antar, we have computers… and so do the Ke’cjes.”
“Here, too,” the Aquarian Liz said, “Of course, our computers use a different alphabet and language than earth ones, but their functions are similar. We don’t have an Antar-wide web, though. I think that would be a good idea… Max?”
Max shrugged. “I like it.”
Liz smiled at Wade. “You may be the inspiration for Antar’s first web. Maybe we’ll call it the Wade Web… the WW.”
Max smiled and chuckled.
“Cool,” Wade said, with an exuberant grin, as she glanced back at Quinn. But when she saw Quinn’s face this time, she had a very quick flash… like a repressed memory… of herself… “Quinn, Let’s get married… right here… right now.”
Wade shook her head vigorously, trying to dislodge the strange and unexpected “memory.”
”He’s mine!” Maggie objected, pulling Quinn back by the other arm, “He loves me!”
Wade flushed and then turned pale, as the dialog continued in disjointed flashes…
“He loves me more,” Wade heard herself say, and she saw herself pulling Quinn the other way again.
Wade shook her head briskly and rubbed her eyes.
“Is something wrong,” Quinn asked, looking concerned.
“I… I think I got an eyelash in my eye or something,” Wade replied, still looking somewhat pale.
“Let me look at it,” Quinn said, moving to sit beside Wade.
“I’ll do it,” said Maggie, moving ahead of Quinn and taking the seat beside Wade. She looked at Wade’s eyes and then shook her head. “It must have got out on its own. I don’t see it, Wade.”
“Yeah… I think it did,” Wade agreed, “I think it’s gone now.” She looked at Quinn, and Quinn smiled. Then she turned and stared out at the sea. She wasn’t sure what she had just seen, but she decided that it was best not to mention it.
For the next fifty-five minutes, they rode in relative silence, everyone marveling at the wondrous sights around them. The water of the Golden Sea was clear beneath the surface. Viewed from space, or even just from a distance, it had a rich golden hue, just as earth’s oceans have a blue hue. But down here, it was as clear as a glass of pure spring water. And there was plenty to see! Fifty-five minutes actually went by faster than anyone expected; and all too soon, they found themselves approaching Grelligo. The young pilots expertly maneuvered their sliders into the tube that connected all the city domes from that point on; and moments later, the riders felt a distinct jet-like surge, as their sliders suddenly accelerated in the tube to roughly 150 miles per hour.
Twelve minutes later, the sliders sped into Chanesio… and straight through Chanesio’s five huge domes… without slowing down, which took seven minutes. Eleven minutes after that, they sped through Aluzia, and eight minutes later, Jarnat. Twenty minutes after passing through Jarnat, the sliders entered the city of Merplex’Antar; and as they passed through several smaller domes inside the main city dome, the riders noticed that their sliders were slowing down. As they entered the fourth internal dome, the vehicles slowed even more.
“Are we there?” Wade asked, suspecting that they still had another stop to go.
Liz smiled. “Max and I asked the girls to stop the sliders at the Merplex mall. We thought you might like to do some shopping before you go home.”
Wade’s eyes lit up; but just as quickly, she looked suddenly crestfallen…
“I don’t have any money. Will they let me window shop?”
Liz grinned and handed Wade a silver button about the size of a dime.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the Antarian equivalent of a credit card,” Liz said, smiling, “It will adhere to your clothes wherever you put it. I have one for each of you.”
“Cool!” Wade exclaimed. “How long do we get to pay it off?”
“You don’t have to, the Aquarian Maria said, “This is the good kind of card! Everything gets billed to Max. I’ve been trying to get one of those forever!”
Michael grinned and looked at Max.
“Oh, wow!” Wade said, sounding a bit emotional, “You mean I can buy whatever I want… with this?”
Liz nodded. “Just put it on you… here. Then pass your hand over it.” Wade did. “Now it’s encoded to your DNA. Only you can use it. When you buy anything now, the cashiers will automatically charge the purchase to Max… as long as you have this on.”
“I don’t suppose this would work on earth…”
Liz shook her head and smiled.
“Nice try, though,” Michael said with a grin.
Liz placed a similar button on each of the other guests, including their doubles from the other dimension. “You’re all set!”
“I don’t think we can buy much,” Wade said, “We don’t have any way to get it home. We kind of like have to slide.”
“But we slide, too,” the Aquarian Isabel said.
Maggie laughed. “Okay, but you slide in a slider… we do it the hard way… free style! It’s kind of like… tumbling through this tube to where you’re going without a vehicle.”
Liz smiled. “Well, see, here’s the best part. Our Varec and his double have been going over some things together with Quinn and Max… your Max… and Max agreed that they’re going to get you home a little differently this time. When you open your vortex with that timer thing of yours, the New Granolith will go through it. You get to ride home in style.”
Wade looked at Quinn, and Quinn grinned, then Wade, Remmy, Professor Arturo, and Maggie all cheered.
“That way, I can tie you to a tree myself and make sure that you stay there this time,” Varec said, with a wry grin on his face. Quinn smiled and seemed to turn slightly red.
At that moment, the slider turned and exited the tube through one of the mall’s access points. Then it circled around the mall and came to a stop in what could only be described as a slider parking garage. Looking around, the guests saw hundreds of sliders of every possible length and style. The basic shape of each was the same; it had to be to fit into the tubes. But that seemed to be the only major similarity. They were all different colors. Some had more windows than others. Some were almost all windows and had clear roofs to boot, and others had almost no windows except in the front. Some were short, and some were really long, like buses or limos. But they all conformed to the shape of the tubes, a kind of sideways oval shape.
The guests and their Aquarian hosts got out of the two sliders they had just arrived in, and Liz herded the group toward a long escalator that led upward…
“That’s the way in. Shall we go forth and conquer the mall?”
Everyone nodded, grinning with anticipation.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As they reached the top of the escalator, the visitors looked around at all the different stores and saw that the inside of the mall was huge. Directly in front of them was something that appeared to be a department-type store. The name on the sign above the door said, “Kyyks At Merplex,” but the Sliders couldn’t read it. To them, it was all a bunch of swirls and hieroglyphs.
“Looks like Sears or J.C.Penneys,” Wade said, walking toward the huge store.
“More like Saks Fifth Avenue,” Maggie said, looking around as she followed Wade in. Quinn, Remmy, Professor Arturo, and the group from the New Granolith followed the girls in, as did the Aquarian group, their hosts on this planet. It didn’t take Wade long to spot something that interested her… especially since it seemed that the ladies department was strategically placed where it would be seen as soon as one walked in. Wade and Maggie began looking through the clothes. Quinn looked at Remmy and the professor and shrugged. But a moment later, Wade pulled out a contour-fitted emerald-green gown that seemed to have a natural shimmer, though it had no sequins or other visible attachments…
“Ooh, slinky… and elegant!” Wade exclaimed, holding the gown up in front of herself… “It looks like it could fit!”
“Try it on,” Liz suggested. “The fitting rooms are right over there.”
Wade took the gown and rushed into the fitting room. Maggie shook her head and grinned. A few moments later, Wade opened the door and stepped out with the gown on. She looked stunning, and from the look on Quinn’s face, he thought so, too. His lower jaw dropped, but it was his eyes that told the story. It was understandable. He had never seen Wade in a formal-type gown before… especially one like this one. It made her look so… different. It seemed to hug and emphasize all the right features just the right way. Maggie noticed, too. She also noticed Quinn’s reaction…
“Uh, Wade, Dear, just between us,” Maggie said, pulling Wade aside after she had taken the dress back off, “That gown’s not really right for you. It makes you look fat… here.” Maggie indicated Wade’s buttox and tummy and gave her a sympathetic look. “And the boobs… the gown makes them look kind of… distorted… fakey. I’m sorry.”
Wade looked at the gown again then at Quinn, who was still looking her way, and nodded. “Thanks for helping me decide, Maggie!” Then she put the gown into her hover cart and pushed it down the aisle, a smile on her face. Maggie watched Wade walk away, with the gown in her cart, and shook her head. “That girl may be more of a challenge than I thought.”
“Do they have a sports and entertainment section,” Remmy asked.
Liz pointed to another escalator. “Up one floor.”
“That’s where I want to look,” Remmy said.
“I’ll go with you,” Professor Arturo hurried to add. “Quinn?”
Remmy smiled and took Quinn by the arm, pulling him with them. “Oh, yeah… yeah! I’m coming, too!”
“I’ll join you,” Michael from the New Granolith said, going with the three Sliders. “Me, too,” Kyle said. Then Jim joined them, too.
“Well, that’s most of the Y-chromosomes,” Maria from the New Granolith said. “How about we look at shoes… Oh, you know what? There’s somewhere else I want to look at first!”
Liz nodded, knowing exactly what Maria had in mind. “Me, too, Maria! Wait up! Isabel’s coming, too, I think!”
“Here it is!” Liz said a few moments later, pointing at the sign over the department. Maria smiled from ear to ear and quickly began to shuffle through one of the racks, as Isabel and Liz tackled another rack nearby…
“Ooh, this one is darling!” Maria said, pulling out a boy’s medium-sized shirt that appeared to be made of something waterproof. “I can just see this on Zorel!”
“You’ve got to get it!” Liz said, “It’s perfect, Maria!”
Liz gasped and pulled something off of the girls’ rack that looked vaguely like a cross between a jacket and a blouse. It was made out of blue denim… or something that looked like denim… and it was waterproof like the boy’s shirt Maria had pulled out. The denim-look blouse or jacket was tied at the waist with a color-coordinated sash, and it had a large, oversized, stand-up collar that was vaguely retro, though the overall look was futuristic. On the back of the jacket –Liz had decided that it was a light jacket- there was a great picture of a swimming dolphin. Liz pulled out two more of the jackets with the same denim look and design but different colors. One was dark off-red, the other forest green; and each had a color-coordinated sash at the waist…
“If they don’t like the colors, Jayyd will gladly change them for the girls, I’m sure, huh, Maria?”
Maria laughed and nodded. “There’s nothing Jayyd likes better than changing colors for people. She’s a real helper!”
“Those are for Maya, JoLeesa, and Andya?” Isabel asked. Liz nodded, as she pulled a boy’s small-size T-shirt with a large glow-in-the-dark starfish embossed on the front of it off the boy’s shirt rack and held it up with a grin.
“For Alyyx?” Maria asked. Liz nodded.
“Oh, Liz! It’s darling! You have to let me come over and see him with it on!”
Liz grinned. “I need to find something for Jeffy now. Is everything here waterproof?”
“I think so,” Isabel said, “It makes sense… they’re a water people… kind of.”
“What kind of fabric do you think these are made of,” Liz asked, showing Isabel the jackets and the T-shirt. Isabel shook her head. “I don’t know. It has a nice feel… it should be comfortable. It’s definitely strong… whatever it is. It should last a long time!”
“You don’t know Zorel!” Maria said.
Isabel laughed. “Yeah, well, Mareeya and Ceelya can be hard on clothes, too! You’re lucky with Jayyd. But she’s still little.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “I need to find something for Jayyd… and Kryys!”
While the girls shopped for the children they were missing so much back home, some of the guys had already left the department store and had walked down the mall to see what else they could find. They were currently in an electronics outlet.
“What would you reckon the function of this unusual gadget to be,” Professor Arturo asked, holding up a hand held device about the size of Quinn’s timer. Quinn looked at the device in Professor Arturo’s hand and shook his head. “I don’t know. It emits a signal from the diode in the front, obviously. It appears to be watertight. And it has a small, inset video screen on the top. If I had to guess, I’d say it was some kind of hand-held laser.
Michael asked the clerk about the device then nodded. It is a laser… a laser sonar.”
“That is a contradiction in terms, my good fellow,” Professor Arturo said, “A sonar is a sound emitting device, whilst a laser is a light emitting device.”
“The clerk said that it emits a laser light, which in turn creates a sound wave in the water. The returning sound wave is picked up and rides the laser light back, then a picture is recreated on the screen… in color. You can see anything underwater up to about three thousand feet away with this thing… in full living color!”
Quinn took the device and looked at it, impressed. “That’s amazing! I’m not sure what I would do with it…”
“Well, I am,” Professor Arturo said, reclaiming the device from Quinn. I will take this, my good man.”
The clerk touched a screen, and a small, multi-colored light instantaneously flashed on the dime-sized button on the outside of the professor’s shirt pocket.
“What was that?”
Michael smiled. “That was the machine reading your credit card.”
“That’s all there is to it? I don’t have to sign anything?”
Michael shook his head. “Nope. It’s coded to your DNA and billed to Max’s double here. No one else could use it even if they did have it.”
Professor Arturo smiled. “I may buy something else! This is quite stimulating!”
Michael picked up something that looked like a plastic mechanical fish and asked the clerk about it. After a short conversation in Antarian, he had the clerk put three of them in a bag for him.
“What are those for,” Professor Arturo asked.
“They’re swim buddies. They swim with you in the water. They can play tag with you and do tricks like leaping out of the water; and the clerk claims they can be trained to do other things like finding lost objects underwater, protecting their owner from dangerous creatures, and even pulling a disabled full-grown man back to safety.”
“Those little plastic fish can do all that?” the Professor asked, amazed.
Michael smiled. “I wouldn’t bet my life on it. It’s sales hype. But it’s still pretty amazing. I’m getting one for Zorel, one for Kryys, and one for Jayyd.”
The Professor nodded and smiled. “Lucky children. They will have a great time with them if those creatures can do half of what was promised.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Michael agreed.
“You miss them, don’t you,” Quinn asked.
Michael nodded, and his eyes misted up. “We’ve seen a lot of things in all these other dimensions… it’s been a real experience. But I’d give anything to hold Jayyd in my arms again or play games with Zorel and Kryys… even if I can’t ever beat Kryys at anything anymore.”
“Is he the oldest,” Professor Arturo asked.
Michael shook his head. “No… he’s the middle one. Zorel is the oldest. But Kryys has special abilities. He’s kind of unique… even on Antar.”
The professor nodded understandingly. “I’m certain that he is. But in their own way, all the children are, aren’t they?”
Michael nodded and wiped his eyes quickly then smiled.
In a small shop nearby, Alex and Max from the New Granolith were looking at items inside a display case.
“Can I look at that one,” Alex asked in Antarian.
The clerk smiled and removed a stunning double ringed choker made of perfect pearls and highly polished red-black corals.
“It’s beautiful,” Alex said, taking it in his hands carefully and spreading it around his fingers. “What do you think, Max? You think Isabel will like it?”
“If she doesn’t, I’ll marry you myself,” Max said.
Alex looked at Max and raised his eyebrows. “That’s more than I want to know, Max.”
Max grinned. “It’s a joke, Alex! I just meant that, yeah, she’ll like it. She’ll love it! Who wouldn’t?”
Alex smiled and turned back to the clerk. “I’ll take it.”
Max asked to see a pearl heirloom cameo locket and necklace set from the case, and the clerk took it out. Max held it up and admired it. “What do you think, Alex? Will Liz like this?”
“Wow! If she doesn’t, I’ll discuss that marriage with you.”
Max looked at Alex and raised his eyebrows.
“Or not…” Alex said, “But if you wanted to give me the necklace, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
Max turned back to the clerk and handed her the necklace… “Can you gift wrap it?”
“Mine, too,” Alex said. “They’re for our wives.”
The clerk nodded and smiled, as she wrapped the gifts silently.
Over the next two hours, all the guests visited at least a dozen different stores in the mall, and each one bought something to take home. In fact, most of them bought a number of items to take home. Their host would have a pretty sizeable bill after this trip, but Max from the New Granolith was pretty sure that his Aquarian double was good for it… and then some.
As the hour approached to meet at the kiosk, everyone headed in that direction. Max and Alex found Tess and Rayylar already there. They had gone for a romantic walk and had watched a movie together, but they were also carrying a couple of bags, so they definitely had bought something to take back with them.
Within minutes, the entire gang was there. Maggie was conspicuously wearing a new pair of shoes and had a rather chic looking pink coral bracelet on her wrist. She also had some items in a bag.
“Look what I found,” Wade said, taking a pair of shoes out of a box. The shoes were emerald green and matched the gown she had bought perfectly. She had also found a small matching purse.
“They’re beautiful!” Tess said. “Where did you find them?”
“At Kyyks Merplex store,” Wade replied excitedly. “I also got a couple of blouses and some really far out jeans! What did you get?”
Tess smiled. “Some things for Jiba and Drel.”
“Who are they?”
“Our children… back home.”
Wade looked at Tess then at Rayylar, momentarily not knowing what to say, then she hugged them both. “I hope you find your planet real soon.”
“Thanks,” Tess said, wiping the corner of her eye and smiling.
<center>End of Chapter 40
tbc…</center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Last
Shopping Trip
Chapter 40
XL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The young pilots navigated their sliders back into the water and took them down to the level where they had originally come into the Ke’cjes’ valley, underneath the dome… and moments later, they were back in the open sea.
Just ahead of them were the mountains that surrounded the Ke’cjes’ valley, and the slider pilots began to ascend in order to go over the mountains, as they had before. But as they began to rise, Max noticed that they were once again surrounded by the huge ray-like creatures with long trailing filaments…
“Looks like our friends are back.”
“What do you think they want,” Michael asked, as the creatures circled the sliders several times.
“I think they want us to follow them,” Max replied, motioning to the pilot of their slider to follow. She nodded and turned the slider in the direction the ray-like creatures were swimming. The other slider followed; but after a few moments, some of the passengers became concerned…
“Uh… we’re going to run into the side of that mountain up ahead,” Kyle said, “If we don’t turn some way or other soon.”
In spite of appearances, the ray-like creatures continued straight toward the cliffs. But they had no intention of running the sliders into the mountain; they were actually heading for a very large, and well concealed, cave. Liz was the first to see it and quickly pointed it out to the others…
“They’re showing us a way through the mountain.”
The rays swam into the cave, and the two sliders followed, turning on their lights in order to see in the darkness. The cave was huge inside; but most surprisingly, it appeared to be natural, not a man-made or Antarian-made phenomenon. All around the two sliders, there were huge stalactites and stalagmites that were undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of years old… formed when these mountains were still above sea level. But now, strange sea creatures swam among the cave’s many outcrops and made their homes in them. The slider pilots followed the rays as they turned a bend, in the darkness, and they noticed thousands of little eyes watching them from among the projecting calcium and lime deposits…
And one not-so-little set of eyes…
“Look out!” Kyle yelled, but the pilots had already seen the thirty-foot-long flopping creature with eyes larger than a semi tractor-trailer truck’s tires, and they skillfully avoided it. Though impressive in size and appearance, the creature made no effort to attack them. In fact, it seemed to be looking for a hiding place… probably from the huge rays that were leading the sliders through the tunnel-like cave.
In only six minutes, the sliders emerged on the outer side of the mountain. The cave’s opening on this side projected downward and was all but invisible to anyone looking straight at the mountain. And as if this were not enough, it was further concealed by a large rocky outcrop above it and tons of Antarian pink and green corals, making it even better hidden than the one on the valley side had been.
“No one would ever find that entrance,” Michael said, shaking his head in wonder… “Unless they knew exactly where it was.”
“Well, going through the mountain just saved us twenty minutes,” Max said, smiling.
The huge rays rolled over and headed back toward the cave, and the sliders’ occupants waved a last goodbye as the creatures seemed to simply disappear into a solid mountain. Moments later, Wade watched the mountains fade and disappear in the distance behind them… just as the domed valley had on the other side…
“That was fun! I still can’t believe I’m really on an alien world… and that I met a real alien shapeshifter. I didn’t even know they actually existed. But Rahn was so cool! And Ta’lan! And those guys that change into the ray things! I wish the Ke’cjes were hooked up to the internet… It’s a shame that they can’t access the worldwide web.”
Quinn smiled. “Yeah, I heard you suggest to Rahn that they form an Antarian-Ke’cje web and connect it to earth’s web so you could chat with them from time to time. Do the Ke’cjes have computers?”
Liz from the New Granolith nodded. “On our Antar, we have computers… and so do the Ke’cjes.”
“Here, too,” the Aquarian Liz said, “Of course, our computers use a different alphabet and language than earth ones, but their functions are similar. We don’t have an Antar-wide web, though. I think that would be a good idea… Max?”
Max shrugged. “I like it.”
Liz smiled at Wade. “You may be the inspiration for Antar’s first web. Maybe we’ll call it the Wade Web… the WW.”
Max smiled and chuckled.
“Cool,” Wade said, with an exuberant grin, as she glanced back at Quinn. But when she saw Quinn’s face this time, she had a very quick flash… like a repressed memory… of herself… “Quinn, Let’s get married… right here… right now.”
Wade shook her head vigorously, trying to dislodge the strange and unexpected “memory.”
”He’s mine!” Maggie objected, pulling Quinn back by the other arm, “He loves me!”
Wade flushed and then turned pale, as the dialog continued in disjointed flashes…
“He loves me more,” Wade heard herself say, and she saw herself pulling Quinn the other way again.
Wade shook her head briskly and rubbed her eyes.
“Is something wrong,” Quinn asked, looking concerned.
“I… I think I got an eyelash in my eye or something,” Wade replied, still looking somewhat pale.
“Let me look at it,” Quinn said, moving to sit beside Wade.
“I’ll do it,” said Maggie, moving ahead of Quinn and taking the seat beside Wade. She looked at Wade’s eyes and then shook her head. “It must have got out on its own. I don’t see it, Wade.”
“Yeah… I think it did,” Wade agreed, “I think it’s gone now.” She looked at Quinn, and Quinn smiled. Then she turned and stared out at the sea. She wasn’t sure what she had just seen, but she decided that it was best not to mention it.
For the next fifty-five minutes, they rode in relative silence, everyone marveling at the wondrous sights around them. The water of the Golden Sea was clear beneath the surface. Viewed from space, or even just from a distance, it had a rich golden hue, just as earth’s oceans have a blue hue. But down here, it was as clear as a glass of pure spring water. And there was plenty to see! Fifty-five minutes actually went by faster than anyone expected; and all too soon, they found themselves approaching Grelligo. The young pilots expertly maneuvered their sliders into the tube that connected all the city domes from that point on; and moments later, the riders felt a distinct jet-like surge, as their sliders suddenly accelerated in the tube to roughly 150 miles per hour.
Twelve minutes later, the sliders sped into Chanesio… and straight through Chanesio’s five huge domes… without slowing down, which took seven minutes. Eleven minutes after that, they sped through Aluzia, and eight minutes later, Jarnat. Twenty minutes after passing through Jarnat, the sliders entered the city of Merplex’Antar; and as they passed through several smaller domes inside the main city dome, the riders noticed that their sliders were slowing down. As they entered the fourth internal dome, the vehicles slowed even more.
“Are we there?” Wade asked, suspecting that they still had another stop to go.
Liz smiled. “Max and I asked the girls to stop the sliders at the Merplex mall. We thought you might like to do some shopping before you go home.”
Wade’s eyes lit up; but just as quickly, she looked suddenly crestfallen…
“I don’t have any money. Will they let me window shop?”
Liz grinned and handed Wade a silver button about the size of a dime.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the Antarian equivalent of a credit card,” Liz said, smiling, “It will adhere to your clothes wherever you put it. I have one for each of you.”
“Cool!” Wade exclaimed. “How long do we get to pay it off?”
“You don’t have to, the Aquarian Maria said, “This is the good kind of card! Everything gets billed to Max. I’ve been trying to get one of those forever!”
Michael grinned and looked at Max.
“Oh, wow!” Wade said, sounding a bit emotional, “You mean I can buy whatever I want… with this?”
Liz nodded. “Just put it on you… here. Then pass your hand over it.” Wade did. “Now it’s encoded to your DNA. Only you can use it. When you buy anything now, the cashiers will automatically charge the purchase to Max… as long as you have this on.”
“I don’t suppose this would work on earth…”
Liz shook her head and smiled.
“Nice try, though,” Michael said with a grin.
Liz placed a similar button on each of the other guests, including their doubles from the other dimension. “You’re all set!”
“I don’t think we can buy much,” Wade said, “We don’t have any way to get it home. We kind of like have to slide.”
“But we slide, too,” the Aquarian Isabel said.
Maggie laughed. “Okay, but you slide in a slider… we do it the hard way… free style! It’s kind of like… tumbling through this tube to where you’re going without a vehicle.”
Liz smiled. “Well, see, here’s the best part. Our Varec and his double have been going over some things together with Quinn and Max… your Max… and Max agreed that they’re going to get you home a little differently this time. When you open your vortex with that timer thing of yours, the New Granolith will go through it. You get to ride home in style.”
Wade looked at Quinn, and Quinn grinned, then Wade, Remmy, Professor Arturo, and Maggie all cheered.
“That way, I can tie you to a tree myself and make sure that you stay there this time,” Varec said, with a wry grin on his face. Quinn smiled and seemed to turn slightly red.
At that moment, the slider turned and exited the tube through one of the mall’s access points. Then it circled around the mall and came to a stop in what could only be described as a slider parking garage. Looking around, the guests saw hundreds of sliders of every possible length and style. The basic shape of each was the same; it had to be to fit into the tubes. But that seemed to be the only major similarity. They were all different colors. Some had more windows than others. Some were almost all windows and had clear roofs to boot, and others had almost no windows except in the front. Some were short, and some were really long, like buses or limos. But they all conformed to the shape of the tubes, a kind of sideways oval shape.
The guests and their Aquarian hosts got out of the two sliders they had just arrived in, and Liz herded the group toward a long escalator that led upward…
“That’s the way in. Shall we go forth and conquer the mall?”
Everyone nodded, grinning with anticipation.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As they reached the top of the escalator, the visitors looked around at all the different stores and saw that the inside of the mall was huge. Directly in front of them was something that appeared to be a department-type store. The name on the sign above the door said, “Kyyks At Merplex,” but the Sliders couldn’t read it. To them, it was all a bunch of swirls and hieroglyphs.
“Looks like Sears or J.C.Penneys,” Wade said, walking toward the huge store.
“More like Saks Fifth Avenue,” Maggie said, looking around as she followed Wade in. Quinn, Remmy, Professor Arturo, and the group from the New Granolith followed the girls in, as did the Aquarian group, their hosts on this planet. It didn’t take Wade long to spot something that interested her… especially since it seemed that the ladies department was strategically placed where it would be seen as soon as one walked in. Wade and Maggie began looking through the clothes. Quinn looked at Remmy and the professor and shrugged. But a moment later, Wade pulled out a contour-fitted emerald-green gown that seemed to have a natural shimmer, though it had no sequins or other visible attachments…
“Ooh, slinky… and elegant!” Wade exclaimed, holding the gown up in front of herself… “It looks like it could fit!”
“Try it on,” Liz suggested. “The fitting rooms are right over there.”
Wade took the gown and rushed into the fitting room. Maggie shook her head and grinned. A few moments later, Wade opened the door and stepped out with the gown on. She looked stunning, and from the look on Quinn’s face, he thought so, too. His lower jaw dropped, but it was his eyes that told the story. It was understandable. He had never seen Wade in a formal-type gown before… especially one like this one. It made her look so… different. It seemed to hug and emphasize all the right features just the right way. Maggie noticed, too. She also noticed Quinn’s reaction…
“Uh, Wade, Dear, just between us,” Maggie said, pulling Wade aside after she had taken the dress back off, “That gown’s not really right for you. It makes you look fat… here.” Maggie indicated Wade’s buttox and tummy and gave her a sympathetic look. “And the boobs… the gown makes them look kind of… distorted… fakey. I’m sorry.”
Wade looked at the gown again then at Quinn, who was still looking her way, and nodded. “Thanks for helping me decide, Maggie!” Then she put the gown into her hover cart and pushed it down the aisle, a smile on her face. Maggie watched Wade walk away, with the gown in her cart, and shook her head. “That girl may be more of a challenge than I thought.”
“Do they have a sports and entertainment section,” Remmy asked.
Liz pointed to another escalator. “Up one floor.”
“That’s where I want to look,” Remmy said.
“I’ll go with you,” Professor Arturo hurried to add. “Quinn?”
Remmy smiled and took Quinn by the arm, pulling him with them. “Oh, yeah… yeah! I’m coming, too!”
“I’ll join you,” Michael from the New Granolith said, going with the three Sliders. “Me, too,” Kyle said. Then Jim joined them, too.
“Well, that’s most of the Y-chromosomes,” Maria from the New Granolith said. “How about we look at shoes… Oh, you know what? There’s somewhere else I want to look at first!”
Liz nodded, knowing exactly what Maria had in mind. “Me, too, Maria! Wait up! Isabel’s coming, too, I think!”
“Here it is!” Liz said a few moments later, pointing at the sign over the department. Maria smiled from ear to ear and quickly began to shuffle through one of the racks, as Isabel and Liz tackled another rack nearby…
“Ooh, this one is darling!” Maria said, pulling out a boy’s medium-sized shirt that appeared to be made of something waterproof. “I can just see this on Zorel!”
“You’ve got to get it!” Liz said, “It’s perfect, Maria!”
Liz gasped and pulled something off of the girls’ rack that looked vaguely like a cross between a jacket and a blouse. It was made out of blue denim… or something that looked like denim… and it was waterproof like the boy’s shirt Maria had pulled out. The denim-look blouse or jacket was tied at the waist with a color-coordinated sash, and it had a large, oversized, stand-up collar that was vaguely retro, though the overall look was futuristic. On the back of the jacket –Liz had decided that it was a light jacket- there was a great picture of a swimming dolphin. Liz pulled out two more of the jackets with the same denim look and design but different colors. One was dark off-red, the other forest green; and each had a color-coordinated sash at the waist…
“If they don’t like the colors, Jayyd will gladly change them for the girls, I’m sure, huh, Maria?”
Maria laughed and nodded. “There’s nothing Jayyd likes better than changing colors for people. She’s a real helper!”
“Those are for Maya, JoLeesa, and Andya?” Isabel asked. Liz nodded, as she pulled a boy’s small-size T-shirt with a large glow-in-the-dark starfish embossed on the front of it off the boy’s shirt rack and held it up with a grin.
“For Alyyx?” Maria asked. Liz nodded.
“Oh, Liz! It’s darling! You have to let me come over and see him with it on!”
Liz grinned. “I need to find something for Jeffy now. Is everything here waterproof?”
“I think so,” Isabel said, “It makes sense… they’re a water people… kind of.”
“What kind of fabric do you think these are made of,” Liz asked, showing Isabel the jackets and the T-shirt. Isabel shook her head. “I don’t know. It has a nice feel… it should be comfortable. It’s definitely strong… whatever it is. It should last a long time!”
“You don’t know Zorel!” Maria said.
Isabel laughed. “Yeah, well, Mareeya and Ceelya can be hard on clothes, too! You’re lucky with Jayyd. But she’s still little.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “I need to find something for Jayyd… and Kryys!”
While the girls shopped for the children they were missing so much back home, some of the guys had already left the department store and had walked down the mall to see what else they could find. They were currently in an electronics outlet.
“What would you reckon the function of this unusual gadget to be,” Professor Arturo asked, holding up a hand held device about the size of Quinn’s timer. Quinn looked at the device in Professor Arturo’s hand and shook his head. “I don’t know. It emits a signal from the diode in the front, obviously. It appears to be watertight. And it has a small, inset video screen on the top. If I had to guess, I’d say it was some kind of hand-held laser.
Michael asked the clerk about the device then nodded. It is a laser… a laser sonar.”
“That is a contradiction in terms, my good fellow,” Professor Arturo said, “A sonar is a sound emitting device, whilst a laser is a light emitting device.”
“The clerk said that it emits a laser light, which in turn creates a sound wave in the water. The returning sound wave is picked up and rides the laser light back, then a picture is recreated on the screen… in color. You can see anything underwater up to about three thousand feet away with this thing… in full living color!”
Quinn took the device and looked at it, impressed. “That’s amazing! I’m not sure what I would do with it…”
“Well, I am,” Professor Arturo said, reclaiming the device from Quinn. I will take this, my good man.”
The clerk touched a screen, and a small, multi-colored light instantaneously flashed on the dime-sized button on the outside of the professor’s shirt pocket.
“What was that?”
Michael smiled. “That was the machine reading your credit card.”
“That’s all there is to it? I don’t have to sign anything?”
Michael shook his head. “Nope. It’s coded to your DNA and billed to Max’s double here. No one else could use it even if they did have it.”
Professor Arturo smiled. “I may buy something else! This is quite stimulating!”
Michael picked up something that looked like a plastic mechanical fish and asked the clerk about it. After a short conversation in Antarian, he had the clerk put three of them in a bag for him.
“What are those for,” Professor Arturo asked.
“They’re swim buddies. They swim with you in the water. They can play tag with you and do tricks like leaping out of the water; and the clerk claims they can be trained to do other things like finding lost objects underwater, protecting their owner from dangerous creatures, and even pulling a disabled full-grown man back to safety.”
“Those little plastic fish can do all that?” the Professor asked, amazed.
Michael smiled. “I wouldn’t bet my life on it. It’s sales hype. But it’s still pretty amazing. I’m getting one for Zorel, one for Kryys, and one for Jayyd.”
The Professor nodded and smiled. “Lucky children. They will have a great time with them if those creatures can do half of what was promised.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Michael agreed.
“You miss them, don’t you,” Quinn asked.
Michael nodded, and his eyes misted up. “We’ve seen a lot of things in all these other dimensions… it’s been a real experience. But I’d give anything to hold Jayyd in my arms again or play games with Zorel and Kryys… even if I can’t ever beat Kryys at anything anymore.”
“Is he the oldest,” Professor Arturo asked.
Michael shook his head. “No… he’s the middle one. Zorel is the oldest. But Kryys has special abilities. He’s kind of unique… even on Antar.”
The professor nodded understandingly. “I’m certain that he is. But in their own way, all the children are, aren’t they?”
Michael nodded and wiped his eyes quickly then smiled.
In a small shop nearby, Alex and Max from the New Granolith were looking at items inside a display case.
“Can I look at that one,” Alex asked in Antarian.
The clerk smiled and removed a stunning double ringed choker made of perfect pearls and highly polished red-black corals.
“It’s beautiful,” Alex said, taking it in his hands carefully and spreading it around his fingers. “What do you think, Max? You think Isabel will like it?”
“If she doesn’t, I’ll marry you myself,” Max said.
Alex looked at Max and raised his eyebrows. “That’s more than I want to know, Max.”
Max grinned. “It’s a joke, Alex! I just meant that, yeah, she’ll like it. She’ll love it! Who wouldn’t?”
Alex smiled and turned back to the clerk. “I’ll take it.”
Max asked to see a pearl heirloom cameo locket and necklace set from the case, and the clerk took it out. Max held it up and admired it. “What do you think, Alex? Will Liz like this?”
“Wow! If she doesn’t, I’ll discuss that marriage with you.”
Max looked at Alex and raised his eyebrows.
“Or not…” Alex said, “But if you wanted to give me the necklace, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
Max turned back to the clerk and handed her the necklace… “Can you gift wrap it?”
“Mine, too,” Alex said. “They’re for our wives.”
The clerk nodded and smiled, as she wrapped the gifts silently.
Over the next two hours, all the guests visited at least a dozen different stores in the mall, and each one bought something to take home. In fact, most of them bought a number of items to take home. Their host would have a pretty sizeable bill after this trip, but Max from the New Granolith was pretty sure that his Aquarian double was good for it… and then some.
As the hour approached to meet at the kiosk, everyone headed in that direction. Max and Alex found Tess and Rayylar already there. They had gone for a romantic walk and had watched a movie together, but they were also carrying a couple of bags, so they definitely had bought something to take back with them.
Within minutes, the entire gang was there. Maggie was conspicuously wearing a new pair of shoes and had a rather chic looking pink coral bracelet on her wrist. She also had some items in a bag.
“Look what I found,” Wade said, taking a pair of shoes out of a box. The shoes were emerald green and matched the gown she had bought perfectly. She had also found a small matching purse.
“They’re beautiful!” Tess said. “Where did you find them?”
“At Kyyks Merplex store,” Wade replied excitedly. “I also got a couple of blouses and some really far out jeans! What did you get?”
Tess smiled. “Some things for Jiba and Drel.”
“Who are they?”
“Our children… back home.”
Wade looked at Tess then at Rayylar, momentarily not knowing what to say, then she hugged them both. “I hope you find your planet real soon.”
“Thanks,” Tess said, wiping the corner of her eye and smiling.
<center>End of Chapter 40
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
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Skiding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One Good Turn…
Chapter 41
XLI
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Max walked forward and stood facing his Aquarian double for a moment, then he smiled… “I know I speak for all of us from the ship when I say thank you. You’ve made this an extraordinary visit. I wish there were some way we could repay all your kindness properly.”
The Aquarian Max gave his double a satisfied grin then turned and watched as some of the children, including his and Liz’s, ran through the palace lounge yet again chasing Jung-Jo, who was enjoying the romp through the underwater palace as much as the children were enjoying chasing him. None of the Aquarian children had ever seen a pawgor… or any other kind of land animal for that matter. Jung-Jo was a completely new life form for them. But he had taken no time at all to grow on them.
“You could leave that incredible pet here,” the Aquarian Max said with a smile. “The children would be in seventh heaven.”
Max smiled and raised one eyebrow slightly. “I’m afraid if I returned to our Antar without Jung-Jo my own children wouldn’t let me back into the palace… I would have to get Jung-Jo back before they would ever talk to me again.”
The Aquarian laughed.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” the Aquarian Liz said, “I know your children must miss you, too. And Max was kidding. He knows you can’t leave one of your crew behind.”
Max smiled. “He is like one of the crew, actually. We’ve gotten so used to him being underfoot all the time.”
“Yeah but he’s a great foot warmer,” Liz added, putting her arm around Max cheerfully.
Max and his double both jumped, as Jung-Jo trotted through again, this time with the Aquarian Michael’s youngest daughter, Serina, who appeared to be little Jayyd’s double, holding onto his tail and giggling hysterically as Jung-Jo pulled her around through the palace. And the other children were not far behind.
“Actually, I might not be able to get much work done if he stayed,” the Aquarian chuckled. “The thing is, Liz and I… and Michael and Maria… and Isabel and Alex… and Tess and Kyle… all grew up on earth, so we’ve seen land animals before. These children have never even seen a dog or a cat… or a bird. For them to actually get to play with a real land animal, one that hasn’t existed here for a hundred thousand years, is worth every Kyrin I may have to pay for that little shopping trip.”
“Um, I don’t know,” Max said, “Some of us can get really carried away when we’re spending someone else’s money.”
The Aquarian Michael laughed.
“It must have been weird for you,” Liz from the New Granolith said, turning to her Aquarian double, “Coming from earth to a water planet and living under the sea 24/7.”
The Aquarian Liz smiled and put her arm around her Max tightly. “Yeah, it’s different. But I never really questioned it. If Max had lived in a volcano… I guess I would have jumped in with him.”
Liz from the ship nodded and smiled understandingly.
The Aquarian Michael looked at his Maria. “Would you have followed me if I lived in a volcano?”
“Sure,” Maria said, teasingly, “If it was a dead volcano and if I was dressed in a fireproof suit just in case.” She looked into Michael’s eyes, and a grin slowly spread over her face… “I followed you here, didn’t I? I guess I’d follow you just about anywhere, Spaceboy.”
Michael smiled.
“When we came here,” the Aquarian Liz said, holding her hands up for everyone to see, “Their doctors offered to give us the same webbing that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess have now… right here between their fingers. But Maria and I decided not to change. Some day we may go back home for a visit, and Mom would freak if I had webbed hands. The idea of her little girl going to live under the sea… never mind on another planet… never really took with her.”
“And your dad?” Liz asked.
The Aquarian Liz smiled. “He just wanted to make sure that Max would take good care of me… and keep me happy.”
“I had to put it in writing!” the Aquarian Max said.
Liz looked surprised. “You mean you guys have never been back home since you came here… even once?”
Her double shook her head. “The factory at Chanesio is working on a large, intergalactic ship for us, but it’s still at least two years from being finished. Max doesn’t trust the ships we have now to make that kind of voyage. They’re getting kind of old.”
“Most of them were built around the 1930’s or 1940’s, earth time,” Max said, “They’re sixty to seventy years old now… some of them may be even older. I don’t intend to lose Liz in space. Jeff would kill me!”
Max from the New Granolith smiled.
“I wish Liz’s spheres worked here,” Michael said, shaking his head, “They only work in our own dimension. If they worked here we could send you home for a visit in the blink of an eye.”
“Spheres?”
Michael nodded. “In our dimension, we found these four spheres on a little moon off Jupiter. This guy named Shaqor, from a far away planet called Xarius, gave them to a girl named Maya when they were still both very young… twelve or thirteen thousand years ago, and she left them on that moon. Anyway, it turned out that Maya was a very distant ancestor of Liz’s, and the spheres responded to Liz.”
“What do they do,” the Aquarian Liz asked.
“One of them opens a portal to anywhere you want to go… well, almost. It’ll take us to earth and back or to another planet… or even into the past, but not into another dimension. Otherwise, we’d be home already. Another one is like a protector thing. Another one lets you see things that are somewhere else. And the last one helps you find things that are lost.”
“So, let’s see if I have this right,” the Aquarian Isabel said, “With these spheres, you can find something, then ask to see it, then go get it, and if there’s danger, you’ll be protected.”
Michael nodded. “Well, the sphere of protection has to be asked to protect you… and the sphere of the portal… the one that takes you places… kind of doesn’t like me, I think. If I ask to go somewhere, sometimes I step out into a river or something; and if I ask it to take me to someone, I may find myself in the bathroom with them or in some other embarrassing situation… unless I’m really, really specific with my instructions.”
“Michael learned how to be very specific very fast,” Liz said, smiling, “I let him use my spheres once to go on a long trip.”
“Do you have these spheres with you now?” the Aquarian Max asked.
Liz shook her head. “I don’t need them. I just have to call them. They work wherever they are… but only for me or for someone that I authorize to use them… and only in our own dimension.”
The Aquarian Max looked at his own Liz… “It’s possible that these spheres exist here, too, in our dimension. They may be on that moon.”
“But we would still have to wait until the ship is ready in order to go there and find them,” Liz said.
Max nodded.
“Maybe not,” Michael said, “If Maya in this dimension was related to your Liz, and if she left her spheres on that moon, maybe your Liz could call them.”
Liz from the New Granolith looked at Michael, and her jaw dropped. “Michael! That’s a great idea! They could go home anytime they wanted then!”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Hold out your hand,” Liz said to her Aquarian counterpart. “Ask for the sphere of the portal.”
The Aquarian Liz did, but nothing happened. After trying a second time, she gave up…
“It’s either not there or it doesn’t respond to me, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” Liz said, “It seemed like a good idea.”
Michael closed his hand into a fist and groaned dejectedly… “Lousy sphere! I can get over ours dumping me in a river. It’s got a twisted sense of humor. But you don’t even care what happens to Liz!”
“This isn’t our dimension,” Liz reminded him softly, “Maya may have never existed here. There may not be any spheres here.”
“I know,” Michael grumbled, “But…”
As Michael spoke, the air in front of him shimmered momentarily, and a portal appeared. No one was more surprised than Michael…
“It came! You did it, Liz! You do have the spheres in your dimension!”
“I am not of this dimension,” a voice from within the portal said, “I came because you called me.”
“Me?” Michael asked, “You mean… you’re our sphere… from our dimension?”
“I am.”
“I thought you couldn’t function in another dimension.”
“I cannot.”
“Then how are you…?”
“I cannot function here… in the way that I was designed… but I never said that I could not appear.”
Michael looked at the portal. “So you can’t take them to earth… or take us back home?”
“I cannot.”
“So you just came to torture us?”
“Torture is not a part of my personality.”
“Personality!” Michael exclaimed, “Is that what you call dumping me in the river when I asked to be taken to one of my children?”
“He was in a boat… on the river. There was no room in the boat for you. I obeyed your request. I took you to him. You did not wish to sink his boat did you?”
“Yeah, well… I guess… but you seemed to enjoy it a bit too much.”
The sphere did not reply, and Max snorted. “It does have a sense of humor!”
Michael scowled. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t you that stepped through and fell into a river on another planet, Max!”
“Why ARE you here?” Max asked.
The portal seemed to shimmer for a moment, and Michael feared that it was about to leave…
“No! Don’t go!”
“I was not going; I was calculating. I cannot function in this dimension, but the spheres of this dimension exist, and they can.”
“Well, they don’t seem to want to answer,” Michael said, “ So I don’t guess they’ll do us any good.”
“They cannot hear you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I checked on the spheres. They are in the cave on the moon off Jupiter… just as I was in my dimension. But in this dimension, a meteor has destroyed the cave, and large parts of the meteor lie near the wall where Maya hid the spheres, deep underground. Something in the meteor is preventing it from hearing anyone call.”
Michael nodded. “Then it can’t help us. They would have to go there and dig it out… when their ship is ready in two years… Just how do you HEAR anyway? I’ve always wondered about that.”
“The word ‘hearing’ is not accurate. No word exists for the way we perceive. It is a connection with a mind that we are in tune with. But there is another way that the sphere of the portal in this dimension may function for them. I can relay the call. Right now, it does not come, because it cannot perceive the one calling.”
“Then it could take them to earth?”
“Yes.”
“And bring them back?”
There was a pause. “Only if I relayed the message again.”
There was a long silence. “Listen,” Michael said at last, “You didn’t take all that stuff I said before seriously, did you… about the twisted humor and torture and all?”
Michael could almost feel the sphere’s satisfaction. “It is okay. Being offended is not part of my personality. There is much that you do not know about us. We have the capacity for… enjoyment. But we are loyal. I would never let Liz fall into a river.”
“Oh, I’m so lucky!” Michael exclaimed, “I’m special!”
“In a way,” the sphere replied.
“So, listen… would you, you know, be willing to relay messages if these people want to visit their families on earth sometime? And would you answer their call to relay a message when they’re ready to come back?”
“I belong to Liz… and to Maya and Shaqor. One of them will have to ask; if they ask, I will do it. Liz gave you permission to call me, but she needs to give permission for anyone else.”
“I do!” Liz said excitedly.
“You will have to give me your instructions,” the voice from the portal said, “I will convey them to the sphere in this dimension. You will not be able to talk to the portal when it appears… nor it to you.”
“Is this safe?” the Aquarian Max asked, “I mean, if the sphere here can’t hear us, is it possible that it might not be able to bring us back?”
“It is functional in every way except perceiving your thoughts,” the portal said.
“I’ll go now!” the Aquarian Liz exclaimed excitedly. “I want to see Dad and Mom. Would you ask it to take me to the CrashDown… on earth… in Roswell… New Mexico?”
The portal disappeared. Fourteen seconds later, another portal appeared.
“Are you… our portal?” Liz asked.
There was no response.
“Liz,” Max said with a worried expression on his face… “Maybe I should go with you.”
“It’ll be fine, Max. I’ll be back in an hour… or two. Three at the most.”
The Aquarian Max looked at his double.
“It’ll be fine,” Max said. “If it doesn’t bring her back, we’ll go get her for you in the New Granolith. It would take about a week, round trip. But the spheres have always been dependable. If ours believes that the one here can function normally, I think we can trust it.”
The Aquarian nodded then hugged Liz and kissed her… “Take care of yourself, Liz.”
“I will. I’ll be back before you miss me.”
“Not possible.”
Liz smiled then stepped into the shimmering ether of the portal and disappeared.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Jeff Parker wiped the sweat off his forehead again and stuck a spatula under each one of the burgers on the grill, deftly flipping them over. Since Michael had left, Jeff had gone back to doing most of the grilling and cooking himself… but he had to admit that he sometimes missed Michael, even now; Michael certainly had a way with rush orders! Jeff sighed and turned around to look for the buns. Finding the package, he laid four buns out on the grill and pressed them down slightly for a few seconds then scooped them up and flipped them onto platters. Then he laid the burgers on them and added the particular accoutrements and fixings that made each one whatever it was that had been ordered. Finally, after a quick look to make sure that everything was exactly what had been ordered, he picked up the tray and carried it to the service window, ringing the bell for a girl to pick it up.
Jeff barely looked at the girl with the antennas on her head and the alien-themed apron as she smiled and picked up the platter. But when he turned back around to prepare the next order, something flashed in his mind… the face… the smile. For a moment, Jeff’s heart stopped. He was sure of it. He spun around and gazed through the window at the girl who was placing the orders on the table. A second later, Jeff flew out of the kitchen and across the dining area and scooped Liz up in his arms, spinning her around and around, to the surprise… and apparently the delight… of all his patrons.
“Liz? Omigod! When did you get back?”
“Just a little while ago. I came straight here.”
“You hear that?” a girl at a table nearby whispered to her companion. “She just got back into town and first place she comes is to the dinah to work.”
“Yeah, but they really, really appreciate the girls here. Ernie throws me a apron an’ sez ‘Hope ya had fun. Now get yer arse back to work.’”
“The other girl chuckled. “If Ernie had you in his arms, it’d be cause youse broke somethin’ and he wuz takin it out in an equal number of yer ribs.” She smiled and sighed, as she watched Jeff spin around and around with Liz in his arms, tears streaming down both of their faces. “But if Ernie looked like this guy… and treated me like that… I could cut him a lot of slack.”
“I think you better set me down, Dad,” Liz said, “The customers are staring.”
“Let them stare. Come on. I want to hear everything. I’ll get Marge to cover for me here for a while. Let’s go upstairs.”
Jeff put Liz down then took her by the hand and walked briskly toward the CrashDown’s lounge, where Marge was taking a break. A few moments later, they were upstairs in the apartment.
“Nancy! Nancy, I have a surprise for you! Where are you?”
Nancy came out of a back room, with a handful of books. When she saw Liz, she gasped, and the books fell precipitously to the floor, as she rushed to her daughter, hugging her, kissing her, and crying. After a couple of minutes, she leaned back and looked Liz over…
“Is Max taking good care of you, Dear?”
“Funny! I thought Dad would be the first to ask me that. Yes, he’s taking very good care of me, Mom! And before you ask, Yes! I’m happy! Very happy!”
Liz looked at her mother again. “You’re not disappointed, are you, Mom? You thought I left him and came home to live?”
Nancy smiled and hugged Liz again. “No, of course not! Though it would be great if you lived here again.”
“I’m a grown woman, Mom. Grown women get married and move out of their parents’ house.”
“But not off of their planet,” Nancy said, giving Liz another kiss.
Liz grinned. “Okay, you got me on that one. But I’m really happy. You have to believe that!”
“Where is Max?” Jeff asked. “Are the others here, too? Are Maria and Michael here?”
“I came by myself this time, Dad.”
Jeff looked at Liz, and his eyes seemed to widen… “By yourself? Did you have a pilot?”
Liz shook her head. “I didn’t fly. Well… actually, I’m not exactly sure what it was. I stepped through a portal and I was just here.” Liz proceeded to tell Jeff and Nancy all about their visitors from the other dimension and about the strange sphere that talked… and the one that had brought her here.
“You see, if this works like it’s supposed to, we can come here any time at all to see you, just by stepping through the portal.”
“But it sounds like you took a big risk,” Jeff said, “I’m surprised Max didn’t stop you.”
“He wanted to come with me, but if something didn’t go as planned and the sphere didn’t show up to take us back, I didn’t want him to be stranded here, too. He’s needed there.”
“You mean that could happen?” Nancy asked. “You could be stranded here… with us?”
Liz smiled. “Mom!”
“I was just wondering. I didn’t mean I was wishing it.”
“Well, Max… the one from the other dimension… seems to trust his sphere a lot… I mean, Liz’s sphere. It actually belongs to her. And this one, we think, will respond to me once we find it and dig it out of the cave it’s buried in on a little moon off Jupiter. But that’s at least two years away. Until then, I have to call my double’s sphere and tell it where I want to go, and it passes along the information to my sphere.”
“Kind of like a booking agent, huh,” Jeff said with a grin.
Liz laughed. “A lot faster, though! And a lot less hassle! You know what this means, Dad? You guys could come see us!”
“In an underwater world?” Nancy protested, “I’m not too sure about that! I never liked being enclosed. I can’t see myself underwater.”
“That way you could see your grandchildren,” Liz said, dropping the bombshell.
For a moment, there was silence, then Nancy sat down, pulling Liz down beside her on the sofa. “How many? How old? Boys or girls? What are they like?”
“I’m not sure I have enough time, Mom. I kind of promised Max I’d come right back. He’s worried about me coming here alone.”
“He should be!” Jeff said.
Liz stood up and called the sphere of the portal from the other dimension; and in seconds, something began to happen in the room. The air shimmered, and something resembling a large, borderless mirror that one might easily get sucked into and be lost in stood in front of them. It was the portal. Liz looked at Nancy then at Jeff. “I could send you back here in a few hours… or whenever you’re ready to come back.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeff said, picking up the phone beside the sofa and dialing a number hastily…
“CrashDown Café! Marge speaking!”
“Marge… would you close up for me tonight? I’ve got to go somewhere. I’ll be back before opening time in the morning. There’s a bonus if you’ll do it.”
“Sure, Mr. Parker. You have a good time. It’s nothing bad, is it?”
“No… No, it’s not bad. Thanks, Marge!”
Liz turned to the portal… “Would you ask my sphere to take the three of us to Max, where it found me before… please?”
The portal disappeared and another one reappeared in fourteen seconds, just as before.
“This would be our flight,” Liz said, taking Jeff with one hand and Nancy with the other. “Are you ready?”
Both of them nodded silently, then Liz stepped into the portal with them by the hand.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Max saw the air shimmer, and he knew that the portal was appearing. But what happened next was totally unexpected…
“Mr. Parker! Mrs. Parker! I… wasn’t expecting you. Welcome to Antar.”
Jeff smiled. “We wanted to see how well you’re taking care of our little girl, Max.”
“Very well,” Max’s double from the other dimension said for him. “Trust me on that!”
Jeff looked at Max’s double then at the others. “This could take some getting used to, seeing two of you.”
Max hugged Liz. “Did everything go smoothly? You’re okay, right?”
Liz nodded, as she hugged Max back and kissed him… “I just stepped through. That’s all there was to it. Smooth as silk.”
Max looked at his double from the other dimension and held out his hand, a big smile on his face…
“Thank you! This is something we never, ever expected in our wildest dreams. It’s going to change our lives so totally for the better.”
His double from the New Granolith took his hand in his and smiled back…
“You know what they say… One good turn deserves another. We owed you.”
<center>End of Chapter 41
tbc…</center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One Good Turn…
Chapter 41
XLI
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Max walked forward and stood facing his Aquarian double for a moment, then he smiled… “I know I speak for all of us from the ship when I say thank you. You’ve made this an extraordinary visit. I wish there were some way we could repay all your kindness properly.”
The Aquarian Max gave his double a satisfied grin then turned and watched as some of the children, including his and Liz’s, ran through the palace lounge yet again chasing Jung-Jo, who was enjoying the romp through the underwater palace as much as the children were enjoying chasing him. None of the Aquarian children had ever seen a pawgor… or any other kind of land animal for that matter. Jung-Jo was a completely new life form for them. But he had taken no time at all to grow on them.
“You could leave that incredible pet here,” the Aquarian Max said with a smile. “The children would be in seventh heaven.”
Max smiled and raised one eyebrow slightly. “I’m afraid if I returned to our Antar without Jung-Jo my own children wouldn’t let me back into the palace… I would have to get Jung-Jo back before they would ever talk to me again.”
The Aquarian laughed.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” the Aquarian Liz said, “I know your children must miss you, too. And Max was kidding. He knows you can’t leave one of your crew behind.”
Max smiled. “He is like one of the crew, actually. We’ve gotten so used to him being underfoot all the time.”
“Yeah but he’s a great foot warmer,” Liz added, putting her arm around Max cheerfully.
Max and his double both jumped, as Jung-Jo trotted through again, this time with the Aquarian Michael’s youngest daughter, Serina, who appeared to be little Jayyd’s double, holding onto his tail and giggling hysterically as Jung-Jo pulled her around through the palace. And the other children were not far behind.
“Actually, I might not be able to get much work done if he stayed,” the Aquarian chuckled. “The thing is, Liz and I… and Michael and Maria… and Isabel and Alex… and Tess and Kyle… all grew up on earth, so we’ve seen land animals before. These children have never even seen a dog or a cat… or a bird. For them to actually get to play with a real land animal, one that hasn’t existed here for a hundred thousand years, is worth every Kyrin I may have to pay for that little shopping trip.”
“Um, I don’t know,” Max said, “Some of us can get really carried away when we’re spending someone else’s money.”
The Aquarian Michael laughed.
“It must have been weird for you,” Liz from the New Granolith said, turning to her Aquarian double, “Coming from earth to a water planet and living under the sea 24/7.”
The Aquarian Liz smiled and put her arm around her Max tightly. “Yeah, it’s different. But I never really questioned it. If Max had lived in a volcano… I guess I would have jumped in with him.”
Liz from the ship nodded and smiled understandingly.
The Aquarian Michael looked at his Maria. “Would you have followed me if I lived in a volcano?”
“Sure,” Maria said, teasingly, “If it was a dead volcano and if I was dressed in a fireproof suit just in case.” She looked into Michael’s eyes, and a grin slowly spread over her face… “I followed you here, didn’t I? I guess I’d follow you just about anywhere, Spaceboy.”
Michael smiled.
“When we came here,” the Aquarian Liz said, holding her hands up for everyone to see, “Their doctors offered to give us the same webbing that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess have now… right here between their fingers. But Maria and I decided not to change. Some day we may go back home for a visit, and Mom would freak if I had webbed hands. The idea of her little girl going to live under the sea… never mind on another planet… never really took with her.”
“And your dad?” Liz asked.
The Aquarian Liz smiled. “He just wanted to make sure that Max would take good care of me… and keep me happy.”
“I had to put it in writing!” the Aquarian Max said.
Liz looked surprised. “You mean you guys have never been back home since you came here… even once?”
Her double shook her head. “The factory at Chanesio is working on a large, intergalactic ship for us, but it’s still at least two years from being finished. Max doesn’t trust the ships we have now to make that kind of voyage. They’re getting kind of old.”
“Most of them were built around the 1930’s or 1940’s, earth time,” Max said, “They’re sixty to seventy years old now… some of them may be even older. I don’t intend to lose Liz in space. Jeff would kill me!”
Max from the New Granolith smiled.
“I wish Liz’s spheres worked here,” Michael said, shaking his head, “They only work in our own dimension. If they worked here we could send you home for a visit in the blink of an eye.”
“Spheres?”
Michael nodded. “In our dimension, we found these four spheres on a little moon off Jupiter. This guy named Shaqor, from a far away planet called Xarius, gave them to a girl named Maya when they were still both very young… twelve or thirteen thousand years ago, and she left them on that moon. Anyway, it turned out that Maya was a very distant ancestor of Liz’s, and the spheres responded to Liz.”
“What do they do,” the Aquarian Liz asked.
“One of them opens a portal to anywhere you want to go… well, almost. It’ll take us to earth and back or to another planet… or even into the past, but not into another dimension. Otherwise, we’d be home already. Another one is like a protector thing. Another one lets you see things that are somewhere else. And the last one helps you find things that are lost.”
“So, let’s see if I have this right,” the Aquarian Isabel said, “With these spheres, you can find something, then ask to see it, then go get it, and if there’s danger, you’ll be protected.”
Michael nodded. “Well, the sphere of protection has to be asked to protect you… and the sphere of the portal… the one that takes you places… kind of doesn’t like me, I think. If I ask to go somewhere, sometimes I step out into a river or something; and if I ask it to take me to someone, I may find myself in the bathroom with them or in some other embarrassing situation… unless I’m really, really specific with my instructions.”
“Michael learned how to be very specific very fast,” Liz said, smiling, “I let him use my spheres once to go on a long trip.”
“Do you have these spheres with you now?” the Aquarian Max asked.
Liz shook her head. “I don’t need them. I just have to call them. They work wherever they are… but only for me or for someone that I authorize to use them… and only in our own dimension.”
The Aquarian Max looked at his own Liz… “It’s possible that these spheres exist here, too, in our dimension. They may be on that moon.”
“But we would still have to wait until the ship is ready in order to go there and find them,” Liz said.
Max nodded.
“Maybe not,” Michael said, “If Maya in this dimension was related to your Liz, and if she left her spheres on that moon, maybe your Liz could call them.”
Liz from the New Granolith looked at Michael, and her jaw dropped. “Michael! That’s a great idea! They could go home anytime they wanted then!”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Hold out your hand,” Liz said to her Aquarian counterpart. “Ask for the sphere of the portal.”
The Aquarian Liz did, but nothing happened. After trying a second time, she gave up…
“It’s either not there or it doesn’t respond to me, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” Liz said, “It seemed like a good idea.”
Michael closed his hand into a fist and groaned dejectedly… “Lousy sphere! I can get over ours dumping me in a river. It’s got a twisted sense of humor. But you don’t even care what happens to Liz!”
“This isn’t our dimension,” Liz reminded him softly, “Maya may have never existed here. There may not be any spheres here.”
“I know,” Michael grumbled, “But…”
As Michael spoke, the air in front of him shimmered momentarily, and a portal appeared. No one was more surprised than Michael…
“It came! You did it, Liz! You do have the spheres in your dimension!”
“I am not of this dimension,” a voice from within the portal said, “I came because you called me.”
“Me?” Michael asked, “You mean… you’re our sphere… from our dimension?”
“I am.”
“I thought you couldn’t function in another dimension.”
“I cannot.”
“Then how are you…?”
“I cannot function here… in the way that I was designed… but I never said that I could not appear.”
Michael looked at the portal. “So you can’t take them to earth… or take us back home?”
“I cannot.”
“So you just came to torture us?”
“Torture is not a part of my personality.”
“Personality!” Michael exclaimed, “Is that what you call dumping me in the river when I asked to be taken to one of my children?”
“He was in a boat… on the river. There was no room in the boat for you. I obeyed your request. I took you to him. You did not wish to sink his boat did you?”
“Yeah, well… I guess… but you seemed to enjoy it a bit too much.”
The sphere did not reply, and Max snorted. “It does have a sense of humor!”
Michael scowled. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t you that stepped through and fell into a river on another planet, Max!”
“Why ARE you here?” Max asked.
The portal seemed to shimmer for a moment, and Michael feared that it was about to leave…
“No! Don’t go!”
“I was not going; I was calculating. I cannot function in this dimension, but the spheres of this dimension exist, and they can.”
“Well, they don’t seem to want to answer,” Michael said, “ So I don’t guess they’ll do us any good.”
“They cannot hear you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I checked on the spheres. They are in the cave on the moon off Jupiter… just as I was in my dimension. But in this dimension, a meteor has destroyed the cave, and large parts of the meteor lie near the wall where Maya hid the spheres, deep underground. Something in the meteor is preventing it from hearing anyone call.”
Michael nodded. “Then it can’t help us. They would have to go there and dig it out… when their ship is ready in two years… Just how do you HEAR anyway? I’ve always wondered about that.”
“The word ‘hearing’ is not accurate. No word exists for the way we perceive. It is a connection with a mind that we are in tune with. But there is another way that the sphere of the portal in this dimension may function for them. I can relay the call. Right now, it does not come, because it cannot perceive the one calling.”
“Then it could take them to earth?”
“Yes.”
“And bring them back?”
There was a pause. “Only if I relayed the message again.”
There was a long silence. “Listen,” Michael said at last, “You didn’t take all that stuff I said before seriously, did you… about the twisted humor and torture and all?”
Michael could almost feel the sphere’s satisfaction. “It is okay. Being offended is not part of my personality. There is much that you do not know about us. We have the capacity for… enjoyment. But we are loyal. I would never let Liz fall into a river.”
“Oh, I’m so lucky!” Michael exclaimed, “I’m special!”
“In a way,” the sphere replied.
“So, listen… would you, you know, be willing to relay messages if these people want to visit their families on earth sometime? And would you answer their call to relay a message when they’re ready to come back?”
“I belong to Liz… and to Maya and Shaqor. One of them will have to ask; if they ask, I will do it. Liz gave you permission to call me, but she needs to give permission for anyone else.”
“I do!” Liz said excitedly.
“You will have to give me your instructions,” the voice from the portal said, “I will convey them to the sphere in this dimension. You will not be able to talk to the portal when it appears… nor it to you.”
“Is this safe?” the Aquarian Max asked, “I mean, if the sphere here can’t hear us, is it possible that it might not be able to bring us back?”
“It is functional in every way except perceiving your thoughts,” the portal said.
“I’ll go now!” the Aquarian Liz exclaimed excitedly. “I want to see Dad and Mom. Would you ask it to take me to the CrashDown… on earth… in Roswell… New Mexico?”
The portal disappeared. Fourteen seconds later, another portal appeared.
“Are you… our portal?” Liz asked.
There was no response.
“Liz,” Max said with a worried expression on his face… “Maybe I should go with you.”
“It’ll be fine, Max. I’ll be back in an hour… or two. Three at the most.”
The Aquarian Max looked at his double.
“It’ll be fine,” Max said. “If it doesn’t bring her back, we’ll go get her for you in the New Granolith. It would take about a week, round trip. But the spheres have always been dependable. If ours believes that the one here can function normally, I think we can trust it.”
The Aquarian nodded then hugged Liz and kissed her… “Take care of yourself, Liz.”
“I will. I’ll be back before you miss me.”
“Not possible.”
Liz smiled then stepped into the shimmering ether of the portal and disappeared.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Jeff Parker wiped the sweat off his forehead again and stuck a spatula under each one of the burgers on the grill, deftly flipping them over. Since Michael had left, Jeff had gone back to doing most of the grilling and cooking himself… but he had to admit that he sometimes missed Michael, even now; Michael certainly had a way with rush orders! Jeff sighed and turned around to look for the buns. Finding the package, he laid four buns out on the grill and pressed them down slightly for a few seconds then scooped them up and flipped them onto platters. Then he laid the burgers on them and added the particular accoutrements and fixings that made each one whatever it was that had been ordered. Finally, after a quick look to make sure that everything was exactly what had been ordered, he picked up the tray and carried it to the service window, ringing the bell for a girl to pick it up.
Jeff barely looked at the girl with the antennas on her head and the alien-themed apron as she smiled and picked up the platter. But when he turned back around to prepare the next order, something flashed in his mind… the face… the smile. For a moment, Jeff’s heart stopped. He was sure of it. He spun around and gazed through the window at the girl who was placing the orders on the table. A second later, Jeff flew out of the kitchen and across the dining area and scooped Liz up in his arms, spinning her around and around, to the surprise… and apparently the delight… of all his patrons.
“Liz? Omigod! When did you get back?”
“Just a little while ago. I came straight here.”
“You hear that?” a girl at a table nearby whispered to her companion. “She just got back into town and first place she comes is to the dinah to work.”
“Yeah, but they really, really appreciate the girls here. Ernie throws me a apron an’ sez ‘Hope ya had fun. Now get yer arse back to work.’”
“The other girl chuckled. “If Ernie had you in his arms, it’d be cause youse broke somethin’ and he wuz takin it out in an equal number of yer ribs.” She smiled and sighed, as she watched Jeff spin around and around with Liz in his arms, tears streaming down both of their faces. “But if Ernie looked like this guy… and treated me like that… I could cut him a lot of slack.”
“I think you better set me down, Dad,” Liz said, “The customers are staring.”
“Let them stare. Come on. I want to hear everything. I’ll get Marge to cover for me here for a while. Let’s go upstairs.”
Jeff put Liz down then took her by the hand and walked briskly toward the CrashDown’s lounge, where Marge was taking a break. A few moments later, they were upstairs in the apartment.
“Nancy! Nancy, I have a surprise for you! Where are you?”
Nancy came out of a back room, with a handful of books. When she saw Liz, she gasped, and the books fell precipitously to the floor, as she rushed to her daughter, hugging her, kissing her, and crying. After a couple of minutes, she leaned back and looked Liz over…
“Is Max taking good care of you, Dear?”
“Funny! I thought Dad would be the first to ask me that. Yes, he’s taking very good care of me, Mom! And before you ask, Yes! I’m happy! Very happy!”
Liz looked at her mother again. “You’re not disappointed, are you, Mom? You thought I left him and came home to live?”
Nancy smiled and hugged Liz again. “No, of course not! Though it would be great if you lived here again.”
“I’m a grown woman, Mom. Grown women get married and move out of their parents’ house.”
“But not off of their planet,” Nancy said, giving Liz another kiss.
Liz grinned. “Okay, you got me on that one. But I’m really happy. You have to believe that!”
“Where is Max?” Jeff asked. “Are the others here, too? Are Maria and Michael here?”
“I came by myself this time, Dad.”
Jeff looked at Liz, and his eyes seemed to widen… “By yourself? Did you have a pilot?”
Liz shook her head. “I didn’t fly. Well… actually, I’m not exactly sure what it was. I stepped through a portal and I was just here.” Liz proceeded to tell Jeff and Nancy all about their visitors from the other dimension and about the strange sphere that talked… and the one that had brought her here.
“You see, if this works like it’s supposed to, we can come here any time at all to see you, just by stepping through the portal.”
“But it sounds like you took a big risk,” Jeff said, “I’m surprised Max didn’t stop you.”
“He wanted to come with me, but if something didn’t go as planned and the sphere didn’t show up to take us back, I didn’t want him to be stranded here, too. He’s needed there.”
“You mean that could happen?” Nancy asked. “You could be stranded here… with us?”
Liz smiled. “Mom!”
“I was just wondering. I didn’t mean I was wishing it.”
“Well, Max… the one from the other dimension… seems to trust his sphere a lot… I mean, Liz’s sphere. It actually belongs to her. And this one, we think, will respond to me once we find it and dig it out of the cave it’s buried in on a little moon off Jupiter. But that’s at least two years away. Until then, I have to call my double’s sphere and tell it where I want to go, and it passes along the information to my sphere.”
“Kind of like a booking agent, huh,” Jeff said with a grin.
Liz laughed. “A lot faster, though! And a lot less hassle! You know what this means, Dad? You guys could come see us!”
“In an underwater world?” Nancy protested, “I’m not too sure about that! I never liked being enclosed. I can’t see myself underwater.”
“That way you could see your grandchildren,” Liz said, dropping the bombshell.
For a moment, there was silence, then Nancy sat down, pulling Liz down beside her on the sofa. “How many? How old? Boys or girls? What are they like?”
“I’m not sure I have enough time, Mom. I kind of promised Max I’d come right back. He’s worried about me coming here alone.”
“He should be!” Jeff said.
Liz stood up and called the sphere of the portal from the other dimension; and in seconds, something began to happen in the room. The air shimmered, and something resembling a large, borderless mirror that one might easily get sucked into and be lost in stood in front of them. It was the portal. Liz looked at Nancy then at Jeff. “I could send you back here in a few hours… or whenever you’re ready to come back.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeff said, picking up the phone beside the sofa and dialing a number hastily…
“CrashDown Café! Marge speaking!”
“Marge… would you close up for me tonight? I’ve got to go somewhere. I’ll be back before opening time in the morning. There’s a bonus if you’ll do it.”
“Sure, Mr. Parker. You have a good time. It’s nothing bad, is it?”
“No… No, it’s not bad. Thanks, Marge!”
Liz turned to the portal… “Would you ask my sphere to take the three of us to Max, where it found me before… please?”
The portal disappeared and another one reappeared in fourteen seconds, just as before.
“This would be our flight,” Liz said, taking Jeff with one hand and Nancy with the other. “Are you ready?”
Both of them nodded silently, then Liz stepped into the portal with them by the hand.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Max saw the air shimmer, and he knew that the portal was appearing. But what happened next was totally unexpected…
“Mr. Parker! Mrs. Parker! I… wasn’t expecting you. Welcome to Antar.”
Jeff smiled. “We wanted to see how well you’re taking care of our little girl, Max.”
“Very well,” Max’s double from the other dimension said for him. “Trust me on that!”
Jeff looked at Max’s double then at the others. “This could take some getting used to, seeing two of you.”
Max hugged Liz. “Did everything go smoothly? You’re okay, right?”
Liz nodded, as she hugged Max back and kissed him… “I just stepped through. That’s all there was to it. Smooth as silk.”
Max looked at his double from the other dimension and held out his hand, a big smile on his face…
“Thank you! This is something we never, ever expected in our wildest dreams. It’s going to change our lives so totally for the better.”
His double from the New Granolith took his hand in his and smiled back…
“You know what they say… One good turn deserves another. We owed you.”
<center>End of Chapter 41
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
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Sliding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Earth Prime
Chapter 42
XLII
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jeff watched as Jung-Jo trotted into the palace lounge then out the other side, disappearing down the long royal hallway, followed closely by a string of children… and Nancy.
“She’s in Heaven, Max… or her second childhood one.”
“Well, I guess she’s entitled. She has four grandchildren she never saw before and didn’t even know existed until six hours ago.”
Jeff nodded. “Triplets… that was a shock.”
“It kind of was for us, too,” Max said with a grin. “Alexina, Claudie, and Bria. Then Jeffrey came along a little over two years later. We’ve got a full house.”
“And we’ve got an empty one… with Liz gone. You may have opened a Pandora’s Box with that sphere of yours. Nancy will be on your doorstep every day now.”
“She’ll be pretty wet then. We’re underwater.”
Jeff laughed. “Yeah… That’s another thing… I know you said the palace and everything on your planet was underwater, but I never really expected something this… sophisticated.”
“Aw, shucks, Mr. Parker. You didn’t think a good old Roswell alien boy like me had it in him?” Max asked, doing the best Andy Griffith impression he could muster.
“You know what I mean, Max… and for the record, it took me a good while to come to terms with that… your past and all, I mean. But this whole complex is huge and… and… well, sophisticated. I forget that I’m underwater at all in here. And your transportation system is amazing. Everything seems to work so well here. You’ve really made a place for yourself… and for Liz… and for the children.”
Max smiled. “Well, I can’t take responsibility, really, for the complex. The original one was built a hundred thousand years ago. It’s been refurbished many times over the years and was rebuilt completely twenty-seven times, or roughly every 3,500 years. The last time was about four hundred years ago.”
“That’s some pretty outstanding lasting power. What do they build these city domes out of? It can’t be steel and glass!”
Max shook his head. “Steel would rust in a short time… and glass is too fragile, even in its strongest forms. The domes… and all of the structures in them… are composed of a polymer made from the nacre-like secretions of three different Antarian mollusks. In a sense, our domes are huge, clear clam shells and our cities are reefs.”
“Well, that explains why they’re so durable and appropriate for the environment. But don’t you have a problem finding enough clams… or whatever the mollusks are that you get building materiel from?”
“We don’t harm them, we farm them… the way some pearl cultivators grow pearls in oysters. There are huge farms of two of the mollusks we use outside of Aluzia. The other is not far from Grelligo. These farms harvest copious amounts of the nacreous substance from the mollusks, with no harm to the mollusks. We keep the substance in solution until we’re ready to shape it into a dome or a wall or whatever. Once it’s shaped, it’s allowed to harden. The original cities were made using nacre from only one species of mollusk, known here as the xerat. It looks a lot like a giant clam but grows to be about fourteen feet wide. The xerat’s nacre hardens into a sort of mother-of-pearl, which is what nacre is. The original inhabitants polished it until it was thin enough to see through in places. That original dome was still functional and solid when it was replaced with a bigger dome 3,000 years later. None of the domes has ever worn out or broken. They’re only replaced to make them larger, to accommodate something new, like the slider tubes, or because we’ve upgraded the product, as we did when we combined the xerat’s nacre with the nacre of the kopro and the axlyy. Kopros look like huge, hundred-pound queen conchs, and axlyys… really can’t be described. The axlyy’s nacre is the clearest substance known on Antar. It needs no polishing and can remain equally thick at all its points. The unique polymer obtained by combining the three substances is also virtually indestructible. It practically lives and breathes. It just doesn’t deteriorate. Our biggest problem is getting rid of the old domes when we want to replace them.”
“Well, if this one’s only four hundred years old, you won’t have to do that for, what? Another 3,100 years, give or take?”
Max nodded. “Or whenever someone decides that something should be upgraded or expanded. It could be ten years from now or ten thousand years from now. Either way, this dome will still look just like it does now when it’s finally replaced.”
“Amazing.”
Jeff and Max watched the children chase Jung-Jo through the lounge again. Nancy was still with them; if she was tiring yet, she wasn’t showing it.
“I’m really surprised that your double agreed to leave his pet behind when they left.”
Max nodded. “He caved in to the kids. But we won’t get to keep Jung-Jo. They’re sending the portal for him before they jump to the other dimension.”
“How are you going to coax that thing into the portal?”
“I have a feeling we won’t have to, but we’ll solve that problem when we come to it.”
As Max spoke, three of the children ran up to him.
“Did you guys get tired of playing with Jung-Jo?”
Alexina sniffed and looked at Max with sad eyes. “Jung-Jo disappeared. The portal came, and he went in it.”
“Well, that answers that,” Jeff said.
“Aw, Honey…” Max picked his ten-year-old daughter up… “Jung-Jo had to go back home. He has a family to return to, too. I know he’ll miss you guys, though.”
“Daddy,” Claudie said, as an idea seemed to pop into her ever-scheming little head, “Couldn’t we use the portal and go to a dry Antar and get our own pet pawgor?”
“It wouldn’t be Jung-Jo,” Alexina said emphatically.
Max nodded. “I’m afraid Alex is right. Jung-Jo is sort of special… I’ve been told. Pawgors aren’t usually friendly like Jung-Jo was. They’re dangerous. Jung-Jo is the first one ever tamed. They saved him when he was a baby, and raised him.”
“We could save a baby pawgor, Daddy,” Bria said, “And bring it back.”
Max smiled. “It wouldn’t work like with Jung-Jo, Bri. He’s just one of a kind.”
Bria nodded. “I know, but I miss him.”
The girls looked upward, then all the other children looked upward, too, as Nancy stood behind them, her arms around as many of them as she could reach around.
“Goodbye, Jung-Jo! Don’t forget us!” eight-year-old Jeffrey said.
“I can guarantee you that Jung-Jo will never forget you,” Nancy said, “He had a great time.”
The children smiled and turned to Nancy… “You’re it!” Bria said, tapping her grandmother on the arm and running. Instantly, the other children scattered, too, disappearing in all directions. Nancy took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. “I know I’m going to feel this tomorrow… but what the hey… You only live once!”
Jeff looked at Max and chuckled, as Nancy rushed off after the children.
“Fame is fleeting… even for a pawgor.”
Max nodded. “But the warm place in their hearts will never forget him.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Onboard the New Granolith, the air shimmered and Jung-Jo stepped through onto the ship’s bridge.
“Our crew is complete,” Max said, turning to Varec then to Michael, who was at the controls in the co-pilot’s seat. “Take it away, Sulu.”
“Yes, Captain,” Michael replied, passing his hand over the preset control. As he did, a beam leapt out in front of the ship, and an immense tunnel-like vortex appeared in front of them. Max turned and looked at Quinn…
“Impressed?”
Quinn nodded. “Very!”
“Take us in, Michael. Everyone hold on.”
Michael aimed the ship at the mouth of the vortex and took it over the rim. Suddenly, the ship was grabbed by something within the vortex and pulled in at the speed of light. Then the vortex was gone.
A moment later, the New Granolith shot out of the vortex on the other end, and Max looked out the bridge window and smiled. “There it is… Earth… your Earth… straight ahead.”
The five Sliders gathered in front of the window to look. They were probably about twice as far out as the moon, a mere hop for the New Granolith. Michael pushed the ship forward at approach speed, and five minutes later, they passed the moon. Then he slowed the ship to final approach speed. Twelve minutes later, they soared into earth’s atmosphere, fully cloaked, and made their way across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco. As they approached Quinn’s house, Michael took the ship down to two hundred feet.
“You’re all staying for the wedding, aren’t you?” Quinn asked, putting his arm around a smiling Maggie Beckett, “Maggie and I plan to be wed three days from today. We need long enough to prepare and to get my family together, but we knew that you guys wouldn’t be able to stay any longer than that. Maggie and I would really like for you to be there.”
Max looked at Michael and the others. Everyone shrugged then nodded and smiled. He noticed that Wade smiled, too; but it was only her lips, not her eyes that were smiling.
“If we all have to be off of the ship at the same time, we will not be able to leave it parked here. There’s too much air traffic,” said Varec, “So I created a remote control for the ship. We can send it into space and put it in a safe orbit. When it’s needed, I’ll be able to recall it.” Varec handed Max and Michael separate controls, like the one in his own hand, a small, flip-cover device that looked like and was about the size of a matchbook.
“What’s this,” Max asked.
“Redundancy… in case we lose one of the remotes or something happens to it… each one of us has one. Any of us can call the ship back.”
“What if someone else found the remote… or stole it,” Michael asked.
“The devices are coded to the DNA on file for the three of us. Any of the three of us will be able to operate any of the three remote controls, but no one else can.”
“Good thinking.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
The day of the wedding found everyone up early. Professor Arturo taught his morning classes then headed to his favorite barber shop for a much-needed touching up of his hair and beard, but he had to ask the shop keeper to pull the shades. It seemed that everywhere the Sliders went now they were followed by news teams and paparazzi. They had, in only three days, become celebrities. Everybody wanted to know everything there was to know about them… about their adventures… and about the amazing vortex. Max and the rest of the crew of the New Granolith tried to keep low profiles; and for the most part, they had more or less succeeded… only because the cameras had plenty of other targets of opportunity at the moment, and because most people assumed that they were from Maggie’s world, which had been destroyed by a supernova. So they assumed that, like Maggie, these new arrivals would still be around to talk to for awhile.
But far from San Francisco, one person sat in darkness, watching the news tape he had recorded earlier. He saw Quinn and his companions, but he was more interested in the shy group shunning the cameras. He paused the tape again and leaned in close to the screen… “I knew they’d turn up again someday. So it begins.”
Daniel Pierce stood up and took out his cell phone, as he closed his office door and locked it…
“Andy? Yeah, Dan here. Have you been watching? Yeah, it’s him… the ‘king’ himself… and his whole entourage… the ones that gave us the slip down in Roswell before we could get our team together. It looks like they’ve finally returned… and they brought an advance invasion force back with them… those kids pretending to have accidentally discovered parallel worlds. Get the guys together. We’re going to a wedding.”
The morning passed peacefully in San Francisco, as everyone prepared for Quinn and Maggie’s wedding. Alex had resigned himself to the apparent fact that Quinn would not be marrying Wade, in spite of his lingering certainty that Quinn and Wade loved each other and that Maggie wasn’t right for him. But he had done all he could. Now he had to accept that their lives were in their hands… maybe…
Four o’clock came, and the guests gathered in the garden outside a small chapel not far from where Quinn and Wade lived. Because of the wedding couple’s celebrity status, great effort had been taken to assure the wedding group as much privacy as possible from the media and from curious prying eyes, though quite a few people were allowed in as guests and as guests of the guests. The street leading to the chapel was closed off, and a police cruiser was stationed at the end to enforce it.
By 4:15, all the invited guests were present and seated, and the wedding began, with Liz, Maria, Isabel, and Tess acting as bridesmaids, and Remmy, Michael, and Max acting as ushers, and Professor Arturo as best man. Wade had been asked to be maid of honor but had declined.
“…We are gathered here today to…” the preacher began.
Wade closed her eyes, as something tugged at her heart, like a memory that just wouldn’t come out and yet wouldn’t go away…
“Quinn, Let’s get married… right here… right now.”
She put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes.
”He’s mine!” Maggie objected, pulling Quinn back by the other arm, “He loves me!”
“He loves me more,” Wade heard herself say, and she saw herself pulling Quinn the other way again.
“If anyone knows any reason why…” the preacher continued…
Maggie looked at Quinn and grinned.
Wade looked up at the sky for a moment in an effort to remove the unwanted flashes from her mind; and as she did, the silence was broken…
“NO! STOP!”
The words had a terminal effect, like a record being scratched by someone suddenly pushing the needle across it. The “music” came to a quick and sudden end, and everyone turned to see who had spoken the fateful words…
“This marriage cannot proceed…”
<center>End of Chapter 42
tbc…</center>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Earth Prime
Chapter 42
XLII
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jeff watched as Jung-Jo trotted into the palace lounge then out the other side, disappearing down the long royal hallway, followed closely by a string of children… and Nancy.
“She’s in Heaven, Max… or her second childhood one.”
“Well, I guess she’s entitled. She has four grandchildren she never saw before and didn’t even know existed until six hours ago.”
Jeff nodded. “Triplets… that was a shock.”
“It kind of was for us, too,” Max said with a grin. “Alexina, Claudie, and Bria. Then Jeffrey came along a little over two years later. We’ve got a full house.”
“And we’ve got an empty one… with Liz gone. You may have opened a Pandora’s Box with that sphere of yours. Nancy will be on your doorstep every day now.”
“She’ll be pretty wet then. We’re underwater.”
Jeff laughed. “Yeah… That’s another thing… I know you said the palace and everything on your planet was underwater, but I never really expected something this… sophisticated.”
“Aw, shucks, Mr. Parker. You didn’t think a good old Roswell alien boy like me had it in him?” Max asked, doing the best Andy Griffith impression he could muster.
“You know what I mean, Max… and for the record, it took me a good while to come to terms with that… your past and all, I mean. But this whole complex is huge and… and… well, sophisticated. I forget that I’m underwater at all in here. And your transportation system is amazing. Everything seems to work so well here. You’ve really made a place for yourself… and for Liz… and for the children.”
Max smiled. “Well, I can’t take responsibility, really, for the complex. The original one was built a hundred thousand years ago. It’s been refurbished many times over the years and was rebuilt completely twenty-seven times, or roughly every 3,500 years. The last time was about four hundred years ago.”
“That’s some pretty outstanding lasting power. What do they build these city domes out of? It can’t be steel and glass!”
Max shook his head. “Steel would rust in a short time… and glass is too fragile, even in its strongest forms. The domes… and all of the structures in them… are composed of a polymer made from the nacre-like secretions of three different Antarian mollusks. In a sense, our domes are huge, clear clam shells and our cities are reefs.”
“Well, that explains why they’re so durable and appropriate for the environment. But don’t you have a problem finding enough clams… or whatever the mollusks are that you get building materiel from?”
“We don’t harm them, we farm them… the way some pearl cultivators grow pearls in oysters. There are huge farms of two of the mollusks we use outside of Aluzia. The other is not far from Grelligo. These farms harvest copious amounts of the nacreous substance from the mollusks, with no harm to the mollusks. We keep the substance in solution until we’re ready to shape it into a dome or a wall or whatever. Once it’s shaped, it’s allowed to harden. The original cities were made using nacre from only one species of mollusk, known here as the xerat. It looks a lot like a giant clam but grows to be about fourteen feet wide. The xerat’s nacre hardens into a sort of mother-of-pearl, which is what nacre is. The original inhabitants polished it until it was thin enough to see through in places. That original dome was still functional and solid when it was replaced with a bigger dome 3,000 years later. None of the domes has ever worn out or broken. They’re only replaced to make them larger, to accommodate something new, like the slider tubes, or because we’ve upgraded the product, as we did when we combined the xerat’s nacre with the nacre of the kopro and the axlyy. Kopros look like huge, hundred-pound queen conchs, and axlyys… really can’t be described. The axlyy’s nacre is the clearest substance known on Antar. It needs no polishing and can remain equally thick at all its points. The unique polymer obtained by combining the three substances is also virtually indestructible. It practically lives and breathes. It just doesn’t deteriorate. Our biggest problem is getting rid of the old domes when we want to replace them.”
“Well, if this one’s only four hundred years old, you won’t have to do that for, what? Another 3,100 years, give or take?”
Max nodded. “Or whenever someone decides that something should be upgraded or expanded. It could be ten years from now or ten thousand years from now. Either way, this dome will still look just like it does now when it’s finally replaced.”
“Amazing.”
Jeff and Max watched the children chase Jung-Jo through the lounge again. Nancy was still with them; if she was tiring yet, she wasn’t showing it.
“I’m really surprised that your double agreed to leave his pet behind when they left.”
Max nodded. “He caved in to the kids. But we won’t get to keep Jung-Jo. They’re sending the portal for him before they jump to the other dimension.”
“How are you going to coax that thing into the portal?”
“I have a feeling we won’t have to, but we’ll solve that problem when we come to it.”
As Max spoke, three of the children ran up to him.
“Did you guys get tired of playing with Jung-Jo?”
Alexina sniffed and looked at Max with sad eyes. “Jung-Jo disappeared. The portal came, and he went in it.”
“Well, that answers that,” Jeff said.
“Aw, Honey…” Max picked his ten-year-old daughter up… “Jung-Jo had to go back home. He has a family to return to, too. I know he’ll miss you guys, though.”
“Daddy,” Claudie said, as an idea seemed to pop into her ever-scheming little head, “Couldn’t we use the portal and go to a dry Antar and get our own pet pawgor?”
“It wouldn’t be Jung-Jo,” Alexina said emphatically.
Max nodded. “I’m afraid Alex is right. Jung-Jo is sort of special… I’ve been told. Pawgors aren’t usually friendly like Jung-Jo was. They’re dangerous. Jung-Jo is the first one ever tamed. They saved him when he was a baby, and raised him.”
“We could save a baby pawgor, Daddy,” Bria said, “And bring it back.”
Max smiled. “It wouldn’t work like with Jung-Jo, Bri. He’s just one of a kind.”
Bria nodded. “I know, but I miss him.”
The girls looked upward, then all the other children looked upward, too, as Nancy stood behind them, her arms around as many of them as she could reach around.
“Goodbye, Jung-Jo! Don’t forget us!” eight-year-old Jeffrey said.
“I can guarantee you that Jung-Jo will never forget you,” Nancy said, “He had a great time.”
The children smiled and turned to Nancy… “You’re it!” Bria said, tapping her grandmother on the arm and running. Instantly, the other children scattered, too, disappearing in all directions. Nancy took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. “I know I’m going to feel this tomorrow… but what the hey… You only live once!”
Jeff looked at Max and chuckled, as Nancy rushed off after the children.
“Fame is fleeting… even for a pawgor.”
Max nodded. “But the warm place in their hearts will never forget him.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Onboard the New Granolith, the air shimmered and Jung-Jo stepped through onto the ship’s bridge.
“Our crew is complete,” Max said, turning to Varec then to Michael, who was at the controls in the co-pilot’s seat. “Take it away, Sulu.”
“Yes, Captain,” Michael replied, passing his hand over the preset control. As he did, a beam leapt out in front of the ship, and an immense tunnel-like vortex appeared in front of them. Max turned and looked at Quinn…
“Impressed?”
Quinn nodded. “Very!”
“Take us in, Michael. Everyone hold on.”
Michael aimed the ship at the mouth of the vortex and took it over the rim. Suddenly, the ship was grabbed by something within the vortex and pulled in at the speed of light. Then the vortex was gone.
A moment later, the New Granolith shot out of the vortex on the other end, and Max looked out the bridge window and smiled. “There it is… Earth… your Earth… straight ahead.”
The five Sliders gathered in front of the window to look. They were probably about twice as far out as the moon, a mere hop for the New Granolith. Michael pushed the ship forward at approach speed, and five minutes later, they passed the moon. Then he slowed the ship to final approach speed. Twelve minutes later, they soared into earth’s atmosphere, fully cloaked, and made their way across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco. As they approached Quinn’s house, Michael took the ship down to two hundred feet.
“You’re all staying for the wedding, aren’t you?” Quinn asked, putting his arm around a smiling Maggie Beckett, “Maggie and I plan to be wed three days from today. We need long enough to prepare and to get my family together, but we knew that you guys wouldn’t be able to stay any longer than that. Maggie and I would really like for you to be there.”
Max looked at Michael and the others. Everyone shrugged then nodded and smiled. He noticed that Wade smiled, too; but it was only her lips, not her eyes that were smiling.
“If we all have to be off of the ship at the same time, we will not be able to leave it parked here. There’s too much air traffic,” said Varec, “So I created a remote control for the ship. We can send it into space and put it in a safe orbit. When it’s needed, I’ll be able to recall it.” Varec handed Max and Michael separate controls, like the one in his own hand, a small, flip-cover device that looked like and was about the size of a matchbook.
“What’s this,” Max asked.
“Redundancy… in case we lose one of the remotes or something happens to it… each one of us has one. Any of us can call the ship back.”
“What if someone else found the remote… or stole it,” Michael asked.
“The devices are coded to the DNA on file for the three of us. Any of the three of us will be able to operate any of the three remote controls, but no one else can.”
“Good thinking.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
The day of the wedding found everyone up early. Professor Arturo taught his morning classes then headed to his favorite barber shop for a much-needed touching up of his hair and beard, but he had to ask the shop keeper to pull the shades. It seemed that everywhere the Sliders went now they were followed by news teams and paparazzi. They had, in only three days, become celebrities. Everybody wanted to know everything there was to know about them… about their adventures… and about the amazing vortex. Max and the rest of the crew of the New Granolith tried to keep low profiles; and for the most part, they had more or less succeeded… only because the cameras had plenty of other targets of opportunity at the moment, and because most people assumed that they were from Maggie’s world, which had been destroyed by a supernova. So they assumed that, like Maggie, these new arrivals would still be around to talk to for awhile.
But far from San Francisco, one person sat in darkness, watching the news tape he had recorded earlier. He saw Quinn and his companions, but he was more interested in the shy group shunning the cameras. He paused the tape again and leaned in close to the screen… “I knew they’d turn up again someday. So it begins.”
Daniel Pierce stood up and took out his cell phone, as he closed his office door and locked it…
“Andy? Yeah, Dan here. Have you been watching? Yeah, it’s him… the ‘king’ himself… and his whole entourage… the ones that gave us the slip down in Roswell before we could get our team together. It looks like they’ve finally returned… and they brought an advance invasion force back with them… those kids pretending to have accidentally discovered parallel worlds. Get the guys together. We’re going to a wedding.”
The morning passed peacefully in San Francisco, as everyone prepared for Quinn and Maggie’s wedding. Alex had resigned himself to the apparent fact that Quinn would not be marrying Wade, in spite of his lingering certainty that Quinn and Wade loved each other and that Maggie wasn’t right for him. But he had done all he could. Now he had to accept that their lives were in their hands… maybe…
Four o’clock came, and the guests gathered in the garden outside a small chapel not far from where Quinn and Wade lived. Because of the wedding couple’s celebrity status, great effort had been taken to assure the wedding group as much privacy as possible from the media and from curious prying eyes, though quite a few people were allowed in as guests and as guests of the guests. The street leading to the chapel was closed off, and a police cruiser was stationed at the end to enforce it.
By 4:15, all the invited guests were present and seated, and the wedding began, with Liz, Maria, Isabel, and Tess acting as bridesmaids, and Remmy, Michael, and Max acting as ushers, and Professor Arturo as best man. Wade had been asked to be maid of honor but had declined.
“…We are gathered here today to…” the preacher began.
Wade closed her eyes, as something tugged at her heart, like a memory that just wouldn’t come out and yet wouldn’t go away…
“Quinn, Let’s get married… right here… right now.”
She put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes.
”He’s mine!” Maggie objected, pulling Quinn back by the other arm, “He loves me!”
“He loves me more,” Wade heard herself say, and she saw herself pulling Quinn the other way again.
“If anyone knows any reason why…” the preacher continued…
Maggie looked at Quinn and grinned.
Wade looked up at the sky for a moment in an effort to remove the unwanted flashes from her mind; and as she did, the silence was broken…
“NO! STOP!”
The words had a terminal effect, like a record being scratched by someone suddenly pushing the needle across it. The “music” came to a quick and sudden end, and everyone turned to see who had spoken the fateful words…
“This marriage cannot proceed…”
<center>End of Chapter 42
tbc…</center>
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Island Breeze
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Sliding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Whom The Bells Toll, part 1
Chapter 43
XLIII
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wade gasped and put both hands over her mouth. Had she said what she was thinking out loud? She was mortified to think that she had let her personal feelings ruin Quinn’s wedding. And now everyone was staring at her. What would she say?
“This marriage cannot proceed… until I have spoken with Captain Beckett.”
Wade jumped and turned around. She had not even noticed the mist that had appeared in the aisle beside her, nor had she noticed the man who had stepped out of the mist. It was he everyone was staring at. Wade sank into her seat, somehow relieved.
The man walked purposefully down the aisle, as a general might, as though he owned the place, and Maggie gasped…
“Jonathan? Oh my gosh! Where did you come from? I thought… you had died!”
“I am happy to say that any rumor to that effect was premature. Many of us found refuge on an uninhabited world before the super nova destroyed our world, but the KroMaggs followed us. We’re making a stand, Maggie. I was charged with finding you and bringing you back… if you will come. We need all the help we can get. Your experience could make the difference between our people… what’s left of us… finding new lives on a new world or… being eradicated totally by the KroMaggs.”
Maggie looked at Quinn apologetically and handed him her bouquet. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I love you… I really do. I hope you know that and will always remember it… but my duty…”
“I’ll come with you.”
Maggie shook her head. “No… It’s not your fight. We may not survive against the KroMaggs.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I’m a captain in the marines. I have a duty.”
“Your duty ended when a super nova destroyed your world.”
“My duty to an institution ended… not my duty to my people. Can you understand, Quinn?”
Quinn looked down then nodded quietly. “I’ve put my life in danger before, Maggie. I’ll come with you. I’m not afraid to die.”
Maggie shook her head and kissed Quinn lightly on the lips. “You would be a distraction… for me. I need to give all of me to the cause if we are to succeed. Goodbye, Quinn.”
Quinn staggered and watched as Maggie disappeared into the mist with Jonathan. Then he looked at the crowd that had gathered for the wedding. What would he say? They looked as stunned as he was.
Alex leaned over and whispered something to Jung-Jo, lying quietly beside him on the far side, away from the aisle, and Jung-Jo hopped up and trotted gingerly around the seats until he got to Wade. He took her gently by the arm and pulled, but she resisted, so Jung-Jo put his mouth around her waist. This brought gasps from the guests, many of whom believed that the strange saber-toothed cat that the Sliders had brought back with them was going to eat Wade right in front of them. But instead, Jung-Jo gently lifted her off her chair and carried her to the front, then he put her down next to Quinn, on her feet.
Quinn looked at Alex and shook his head in disbelief, then he smiled at Wade.
“I lied,” Wade said quietly, “I do love you, Quinn. I didn’t want to ruin what you had with Maggie, because I knew she was what you wanted… and what you needed to be happy.”
Quinn took Wade’s hands in his and shook his head. “You turned down my proposal just so I could marry Maggie?”
Wade nodded sheepishly.
“Wade, Maggie is an amazing woman, but she can’t hold a candle to you. As much as I loved her… and I did… I love you more. You’re special. But you and I always had sort of an agreement… to be friends. I didn’t want to ruin that. And when I asked, you said…”
“I know,” Wade nodded, “I said that I didn’t love you like that. It was the hardest lie I ever told in my life. I was sick all night.”
“And you did that for me?”
“Well, I didn’t do it for her?”
Quinn smiled, then he got down on one knee, still holding Wade’s hands in his…
“Wade, will you marry me?”
This unexpected turn brought thunderous applause from the guests.
Wade smiled, and tears ran down her cheeks. She dared not try to speak, so she just nodded, but the smile on her face told Quinn all he needed to know. And this time, the smile was also in her eyes.
“I’d like to have time to prepare, Quinn… a day or two. I want this to be our wedding, not yours and Maggie’s. I don’t want to be the leftovers at her wedding.”
Quinn smiled. “Wade, you’ll never be leftovers. You’re definitely…”
Wade put one finger on Quinn’s lips. “Save it. You can tell me later… after we’re married.”
“When do you want to do it, Wade?”
Wade’s eyes opened wide, and she smiled.
“Get married! Get married, I mean!”
“Can I have till day after tomorrow… about this time… right here in the garden?”
“You can have anything you want.”
Quinn turned to the guests… “We’re going to have a slight delay, just till day after tomorrow… same time. I hope you’ll all be here.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” one man said, standing up with his wife, “This is real entertainment!”
His wife smiled, looking slightly embarrassed, but she didn’t contradict him. One by one, the guests all filed out of the garden and drove off, leaving Quinn and Wade together with just each other and the group from the New Granolith.
“I wanted Mom and Dad to be at my wedding,” Wade said to Quinn. “I want Dad to give me away. But I want you guys to be here, too,” she said, turning to Liz and Max. Can you stay just two more days?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Michael said, mimicking the man who had left earlier, “This is entertainment. How often do you get to see a pawgor carry the bride up to the groom?”
Wade grinned. “Well, I had something else in mind for Jung-Jo this time. Isabel told me that he has some experience in this already.”
Liz looked at Jung-Jo, then she suddenly knew what Wade was talking about. “You want Jung-Jo to be the ring bearer?”
Wade nodded emphatically. “Is that okay?”
“I think Jung-Jo would be delighted,” Liz said, “He’s becoming such a ham.”
“Do you think… the droids on the ship could make me a wedding gown, too? Isabel said they work fast and they’ve done it before.”
Liz nodded. “I’ll get them right on it. You’ll need to come back to the ship tonight and choose the style you like… and take some measurements.”
“Okay. Eight o’clock?”
“We’ll come get you at eight.”
Max and his group turned and walked into the little chapel. From there, they would call the ship and transfer up to it… out of sight of prying eyes. Finally alone, Quinn and Wade went for a walk together, but as they reached the road, they were suddenly surrounded by black cars. Then seven men jumped out, armed to the teeth.
“Stop right there!”
“Who are you?” Quinn asked, stepping in front of Wade.
“Name’s Pierce… Daniel Pierce. You can relax. It’s Max I’m looking for. I’ve already checked you both out. You’re human.”
“You’re the FBI guy… the one with the secret unit,” Quinn said, remembering Max and the others telling them about Pierce once.
“Where’s Max?”
“You’re too late. He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
Quinn pulled out his timer and pressed the button; and when he did, the vortex appeared.
“Where does that go?”
“To another place… where they’re safe.”
“They walked into that thing?”
Quinn nodded.
“Come on,” Pierce said, waving to the other men, who looked a bit less eager than Pierce did. Pierce rushed into the vortex followed by all six of his men, then the vortex closed.
“Where did they go?” Wade asked.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s a KroMagg world. They want to fight aliens… let them fight KroMaggs. They’re not aliens, but they’re as alien as you can get on earth. We need to tell Max that this guy was looking for him. When they come to take you to the ship at eight, I’ll go with you.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Do you think Pierce can get back here?”
Quinn smiled. “Not a chance. He doesn’t have the timer.”
“The KroMaggs have slider capabilities.”
Quinn nodded. “He would have to form an alliance with them. Somehow I don’t see that happening. My bet is, Pierce and all his men will either be dead or in a KroMagg camp by nightfall.”
“Ugh! As repulsive as that thought is, I can’t think of anyone more deserving.”
Quinn smiled.
<center>End of Chapter 43
tbc…</center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Whom The Bells Toll, part 1
Chapter 43
XLIII
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wade gasped and put both hands over her mouth. Had she said what she was thinking out loud? She was mortified to think that she had let her personal feelings ruin Quinn’s wedding. And now everyone was staring at her. What would she say?
“This marriage cannot proceed… until I have spoken with Captain Beckett.”
Wade jumped and turned around. She had not even noticed the mist that had appeared in the aisle beside her, nor had she noticed the man who had stepped out of the mist. It was he everyone was staring at. Wade sank into her seat, somehow relieved.
The man walked purposefully down the aisle, as a general might, as though he owned the place, and Maggie gasped…
“Jonathan? Oh my gosh! Where did you come from? I thought… you had died!”
“I am happy to say that any rumor to that effect was premature. Many of us found refuge on an uninhabited world before the super nova destroyed our world, but the KroMaggs followed us. We’re making a stand, Maggie. I was charged with finding you and bringing you back… if you will come. We need all the help we can get. Your experience could make the difference between our people… what’s left of us… finding new lives on a new world or… being eradicated totally by the KroMaggs.”
Maggie looked at Quinn apologetically and handed him her bouquet. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I love you… I really do. I hope you know that and will always remember it… but my duty…”
“I’ll come with you.”
Maggie shook her head. “No… It’s not your fight. We may not survive against the KroMaggs.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I’m a captain in the marines. I have a duty.”
“Your duty ended when a super nova destroyed your world.”
“My duty to an institution ended… not my duty to my people. Can you understand, Quinn?”
Quinn looked down then nodded quietly. “I’ve put my life in danger before, Maggie. I’ll come with you. I’m not afraid to die.”
Maggie shook her head and kissed Quinn lightly on the lips. “You would be a distraction… for me. I need to give all of me to the cause if we are to succeed. Goodbye, Quinn.”
Quinn staggered and watched as Maggie disappeared into the mist with Jonathan. Then he looked at the crowd that had gathered for the wedding. What would he say? They looked as stunned as he was.
Alex leaned over and whispered something to Jung-Jo, lying quietly beside him on the far side, away from the aisle, and Jung-Jo hopped up and trotted gingerly around the seats until he got to Wade. He took her gently by the arm and pulled, but she resisted, so Jung-Jo put his mouth around her waist. This brought gasps from the guests, many of whom believed that the strange saber-toothed cat that the Sliders had brought back with them was going to eat Wade right in front of them. But instead, Jung-Jo gently lifted her off her chair and carried her to the front, then he put her down next to Quinn, on her feet.
Quinn looked at Alex and shook his head in disbelief, then he smiled at Wade.
“I lied,” Wade said quietly, “I do love you, Quinn. I didn’t want to ruin what you had with Maggie, because I knew she was what you wanted… and what you needed to be happy.”
Quinn took Wade’s hands in his and shook his head. “You turned down my proposal just so I could marry Maggie?”
Wade nodded sheepishly.
“Wade, Maggie is an amazing woman, but she can’t hold a candle to you. As much as I loved her… and I did… I love you more. You’re special. But you and I always had sort of an agreement… to be friends. I didn’t want to ruin that. And when I asked, you said…”
“I know,” Wade nodded, “I said that I didn’t love you like that. It was the hardest lie I ever told in my life. I was sick all night.”
“And you did that for me?”
“Well, I didn’t do it for her?”
Quinn smiled, then he got down on one knee, still holding Wade’s hands in his…
“Wade, will you marry me?”
This unexpected turn brought thunderous applause from the guests.
Wade smiled, and tears ran down her cheeks. She dared not try to speak, so she just nodded, but the smile on her face told Quinn all he needed to know. And this time, the smile was also in her eyes.
“I’d like to have time to prepare, Quinn… a day or two. I want this to be our wedding, not yours and Maggie’s. I don’t want to be the leftovers at her wedding.”
Quinn smiled. “Wade, you’ll never be leftovers. You’re definitely…”
Wade put one finger on Quinn’s lips. “Save it. You can tell me later… after we’re married.”
“When do you want to do it, Wade?”
Wade’s eyes opened wide, and she smiled.
“Get married! Get married, I mean!”
“Can I have till day after tomorrow… about this time… right here in the garden?”
“You can have anything you want.”
Quinn turned to the guests… “We’re going to have a slight delay, just till day after tomorrow… same time. I hope you’ll all be here.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” one man said, standing up with his wife, “This is real entertainment!”
His wife smiled, looking slightly embarrassed, but she didn’t contradict him. One by one, the guests all filed out of the garden and drove off, leaving Quinn and Wade together with just each other and the group from the New Granolith.
“I wanted Mom and Dad to be at my wedding,” Wade said to Quinn. “I want Dad to give me away. But I want you guys to be here, too,” she said, turning to Liz and Max. Can you stay just two more days?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Michael said, mimicking the man who had left earlier, “This is entertainment. How often do you get to see a pawgor carry the bride up to the groom?”
Wade grinned. “Well, I had something else in mind for Jung-Jo this time. Isabel told me that he has some experience in this already.”
Liz looked at Jung-Jo, then she suddenly knew what Wade was talking about. “You want Jung-Jo to be the ring bearer?”
Wade nodded emphatically. “Is that okay?”
“I think Jung-Jo would be delighted,” Liz said, “He’s becoming such a ham.”
“Do you think… the droids on the ship could make me a wedding gown, too? Isabel said they work fast and they’ve done it before.”
Liz nodded. “I’ll get them right on it. You’ll need to come back to the ship tonight and choose the style you like… and take some measurements.”
“Okay. Eight o’clock?”
“We’ll come get you at eight.”
Max and his group turned and walked into the little chapel. From there, they would call the ship and transfer up to it… out of sight of prying eyes. Finally alone, Quinn and Wade went for a walk together, but as they reached the road, they were suddenly surrounded by black cars. Then seven men jumped out, armed to the teeth.
“Stop right there!”
“Who are you?” Quinn asked, stepping in front of Wade.
“Name’s Pierce… Daniel Pierce. You can relax. It’s Max I’m looking for. I’ve already checked you both out. You’re human.”
“You’re the FBI guy… the one with the secret unit,” Quinn said, remembering Max and the others telling them about Pierce once.
“Where’s Max?”
“You’re too late. He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
Quinn pulled out his timer and pressed the button; and when he did, the vortex appeared.
“Where does that go?”
“To another place… where they’re safe.”
“They walked into that thing?”
Quinn nodded.
“Come on,” Pierce said, waving to the other men, who looked a bit less eager than Pierce did. Pierce rushed into the vortex followed by all six of his men, then the vortex closed.
“Where did they go?” Wade asked.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s a KroMagg world. They want to fight aliens… let them fight KroMaggs. They’re not aliens, but they’re as alien as you can get on earth. We need to tell Max that this guy was looking for him. When they come to take you to the ship at eight, I’ll go with you.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Do you think Pierce can get back here?”
Quinn smiled. “Not a chance. He doesn’t have the timer.”
“The KroMaggs have slider capabilities.”
Quinn nodded. “He would have to form an alliance with them. Somehow I don’t see that happening. My bet is, Pierce and all his men will either be dead or in a KroMagg camp by nightfall.”
“Ugh! As repulsive as that thought is, I can’t think of anyone more deserving.”
Quinn smiled.
<center>End of Chapter 43
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Whom The Bells Toll, part 2
Chapter 44
XLIV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Michael watched the gardens fill to capacity in anticipation of Wade and Quinn’s wedding… “You know what, Max? I think we should be selling tickets. This place is full already, and these are just their friends and relatives.”
Max nodded. “Hometown girl. Everyone knows her.”
“Or claims to… now that she’s famous,” Michael replied.
“Well, one thing’s pretty evident,” Isabel interjected, “They certainly seem to like the idea that Wade’s the one marrying Quinn.”
“They didn’t know Maggie,” Max said, “She didn’t have the hometown girl advantage.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “I think it’s the fairytale element. Cinderella wins out over the evil stepsister.”
“I wouldn’t describe Maggie as the evil stepsister,” Max scoffed, “She wasn’t bad… really.”
Michael shrugged. “No, but there’s still that fairytale element. Wade is the princess who… who kissed the toad and turned him into a handsome prince.”
The others laughed. “So Quinn is a toad?” Maria asked.
“Not anymore. Now that he’s marrying Wade he’s a handsome prince… in the public’s opinion.”
“You’ve been talking to Alex too much… You’re starting to sound like him,” Tess said, giggling, “where is Alex anyway?”
“He’s around somewhere,” Isabel said, “Acting insufferably proud of himself because he was right when he said that Maggie’s devotion to Quinn wasn’t as deep as Wade’s and that Maggie had a past life that could come back to drive a wedge between the two of them. Boy, did she ever!”
“I guess Alex called it,” Liz agreed, “Sometimes I think he has a crystal ball.”
Isabel smiled. “He’s just good at gauging people… and he’s a matchmaker at heart… and he’s stubborn, too.”
Michael snorted. “I’ll vouch for that! He’s like a bulldog that won’t let go… when he thinks he’s right.”
“I was right,” Alex said, walking up at that moment, “Never doubt the Alex!”
“Oh it’s THE Alex now?” Michael asked.
“The… or Sir to you.”
“That’ll be the day!”
“I was right. Admit it!”
“Yeah, okay… you were right… this time. But we all knew it. Some of us just didn’t want to interfere in their private lives.”
Alex grinned. “Somebody had to.”
“I still can’t believe you sent Jung-Jo to drag her up to the altar,” Michael said, rolling his eyes, “You took a huge risk.”
Alex laughed. “It wasn’t so risky. I knew what they both wanted. I just had to make them see it.”
“Well, I was ready to tell everyone that you crashed the party and that I never saw you before… if it didn’t work.”
“Oh ye of little faith!”
“Yeah, well… I don’t have a lot of faith in any human except Maria… and you’re not Maria. You’re not God, either. You can screw up.”
Alex grinned. “But I didn’t.”
“The wedding’s starting,” Max said in a hushed whisper, as the music began to play, “Let’s take our places. You guys cut out the mutual admiration stuff for a while.”
Quinn and his best man, Professor Arturo, walked in from the side and assumed their places at the front, as did the pastor who was performing the ceremony. Then Max, Michael, and Alex, looking very dapper and smiling, joined the other ushers to escort the bridesmaids down the aisle.
Suddenly, as they neared the front, there was a small commotion, and gasps were heard from some of the guests, as Jung-Jo appeared, walking regally down the aisle, head held high, wearing a special-made tuxedo vest and a bow tie. Wade’s little sister walked beside him, carrying flowers that she dropped along the way. As Jung-Jo and the little flower girl neared the front, the music changed to “Here Comes The Bride,” and everyone turned to look.
There were gasps… then more gasps. Wade walked slowly down the aisle, on her father’s arm, a radiant smile on her face, wearing a stunning white wedding gown that for its sheer beauty and elegance could have rivaled anything a real princess might have worn. But it was her own smiling face that added the touch of perfection. Max glanced at Quinn and noticed that he looked stunned… and maybe just a little goofy. Max smiled. Fortunately, all eyes were on the bride-to-be. Quinn quickly realized that his jaw was hanging open and assumed a more dignified look. Even Max could not deny that Quinn did strike a handsome pose decked out in his tux, with a smile on his face. And as Wade stood beside him, it was hard not to think that the only thing missing was the carriage for this to be a fairytale wedding… the wedding of a prince and princess of legends. Obviously, the guests thought so. The sighs and ahs were audible, and not an eye in the crowd was dry.
“Friends, we are gathered together to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”
Quinn glanced at Wade and beamed, and Wade found that she had to struggle to keep her smile from growing bigger than her face, if that were possible. She certainly didn’t want to look like Alice’s Cheshire cat… all grin and no face. But she needn’t have been concerned. The guests loved it.
“…If there is anyone present who knows any cause why this couple should not be married let them speak now or forever hold their peace…”
Quinn glanced casually at the crowd and smiled… (They better not. I’ll send anyone who makes a peep to a world sooooo far away…)
“Who gives this woman away?”
“I do,” Wade’s father said, but Quinn only vaguely heard him. (It’s funny… I’ve cherished my independence… and yet… I feel like… Wade IS my independence now… and my future. It just feels right somehow. With Maggie I was never this sure.)
“Would you please face each other and join hands.”
Quinn took Wade’s hands in his and smiled.
(He looks like a god… my Adonis… I think I’m going to wake up and find out this was all a dream.)
(She followed me into hell… literally almost. She didn’t have to. She could have stayed in San Francisco in comfort. She didn’t have to go sliding through a hundred parallel words, risking her life a hundred times over… all for me. What did I ever do to deserve her? I can’t believe I came so close to losing her.)
“Quinn Mallory, do you take Wade Welles to be your wife… to love, honor, cherish, and protect her… forsaking all others and holding only to her forevermore?”
“I do.” (More than you’ll ever know.)
“Wade Welles, do you take Quinn Mallory to be your husband… to love, honor, cherish, and protect him… forsaking all others and holding only to him forevermore?”
“I do.” (God, just don’t let me wake up! If this is a dream, I don’t want to ever wake up.)
The pastor smiled then tried to look stern… “Throughout time, nothing has endured more than love or been more important than love. We are told that ‘God is Love.’ We are assured that ‘Love conquers all.’ It is love which brings you here today, the union of two hearts and two spirits. As your lives continue to interweave as one pattern, remember that love will make this a glorious union, and love will cause this union to endure.
Paul said, Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels but do not have love, I am only sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.
Though I have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love endures and is kind.
Love is not envious or jealous.
Love wants not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, it is not easily provoked, and thinks no evil.
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.
Where there are prophecies, they shall fail, where there be tongues, they shall cease, where there be knowledge, it shall vanish away…
So faith, hope, love remain -these three- but the greatest of these is love.”
The pastor stopped and looked at Quinn…
“Is there a ring?”
Jung-Jo perked up at the word “ring,” and he rubbed his head against Quinn. Quinn reached out and untied a small attachment from the bow tie around Jung-Jo’s neck, removing from it a ring, which he slipped onto Wade’s finger…
“Wade, with this ring, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. All that I am or ever will be I give to you… for as long as I shall live, and if possible, beyond that, to the end of time and further. All that we have seen together, experienced together, and struggled with together has bound us more closely to each other, but it is nothing compared to the new lives that await us now… as husband and wife.”
Jung-Jo purred quietly and rubbed against Wade, looking very contented. Wade reached out and removed the second attachment from Jung-Jo’s bow tie. Then she slipped it onto Quinn’s finger…
“Quinn, this ring is a perfect circle. It has no beginning and no end, and so shall our love be. I can’t remember when I started loving you, and I know in my heart and soul that I will never know the day when I don’t love you anymore. We are, and forever will be, one. Wherever you go, I will follow, because, of all the possessions, of all the riches, of all the material things that I could have in this world, there is none that I want more than you. Your love fills my heart and gives meaning to my life. It is the most important thing on this earth –or in any dimension- to me.”
Quinn was glad that he had already said his part, because he wasn’t sure that he would be able to speak now without his voice breaking. He wiped his eyes quickly and smiled.
“There is nothing more important than love… in any place in time… or in any culture,” the pastor continued, “I want to send you into your new lives with these thoughts… the first is an Apache blessing. It goes like this:
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life beyond.
Go now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life together.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.
And the second is a Cherokee prayer:
God in heaven above please protect the ones we love.
We honor all you created as we pledge our hearts and lives together.
We honor mother earth and ask for our marriage to be abundant and grow stronger through the seasons;
We honor fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts;
We honor wind and ask we sail though life safe and calm as in our father's arms;
We honor water… to clean and soothe our relationship… that it may never thirst for love;
With all the forces of the universe you created, we pray for harmony and true happiness as we forever grow young together. Amen.
Quinn Mallory… Wade Welles… I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Quinn grinned and swept Wade into his arms, kissing her with… well, not quite all of the passion he had pent up in him at the moment. Some of it would just have to wait. But Jung-Jo put one paw over his eyes, which brought giggles and laughter from the guests.
“We’re married,” Quinn said.
Wade nodded and smiled. At this moment, she didn’t care if she did look like Alice’s Cheshire cat.
<center>End of Chapter 44
tbc…</center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Whom The Bells Toll, part 2
Chapter 44
XLIV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Michael watched the gardens fill to capacity in anticipation of Wade and Quinn’s wedding… “You know what, Max? I think we should be selling tickets. This place is full already, and these are just their friends and relatives.”
Max nodded. “Hometown girl. Everyone knows her.”
“Or claims to… now that she’s famous,” Michael replied.
“Well, one thing’s pretty evident,” Isabel interjected, “They certainly seem to like the idea that Wade’s the one marrying Quinn.”
“They didn’t know Maggie,” Max said, “She didn’t have the hometown girl advantage.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “I think it’s the fairytale element. Cinderella wins out over the evil stepsister.”
“I wouldn’t describe Maggie as the evil stepsister,” Max scoffed, “She wasn’t bad… really.”
Michael shrugged. “No, but there’s still that fairytale element. Wade is the princess who… who kissed the toad and turned him into a handsome prince.”
The others laughed. “So Quinn is a toad?” Maria asked.
“Not anymore. Now that he’s marrying Wade he’s a handsome prince… in the public’s opinion.”
“You’ve been talking to Alex too much… You’re starting to sound like him,” Tess said, giggling, “where is Alex anyway?”
“He’s around somewhere,” Isabel said, “Acting insufferably proud of himself because he was right when he said that Maggie’s devotion to Quinn wasn’t as deep as Wade’s and that Maggie had a past life that could come back to drive a wedge between the two of them. Boy, did she ever!”
“I guess Alex called it,” Liz agreed, “Sometimes I think he has a crystal ball.”
Isabel smiled. “He’s just good at gauging people… and he’s a matchmaker at heart… and he’s stubborn, too.”
Michael snorted. “I’ll vouch for that! He’s like a bulldog that won’t let go… when he thinks he’s right.”
“I was right,” Alex said, walking up at that moment, “Never doubt the Alex!”
“Oh it’s THE Alex now?” Michael asked.
“The… or Sir to you.”
“That’ll be the day!”
“I was right. Admit it!”
“Yeah, okay… you were right… this time. But we all knew it. Some of us just didn’t want to interfere in their private lives.”
Alex grinned. “Somebody had to.”
“I still can’t believe you sent Jung-Jo to drag her up to the altar,” Michael said, rolling his eyes, “You took a huge risk.”
Alex laughed. “It wasn’t so risky. I knew what they both wanted. I just had to make them see it.”
“Well, I was ready to tell everyone that you crashed the party and that I never saw you before… if it didn’t work.”
“Oh ye of little faith!”
“Yeah, well… I don’t have a lot of faith in any human except Maria… and you’re not Maria. You’re not God, either. You can screw up.”
Alex grinned. “But I didn’t.”
“The wedding’s starting,” Max said in a hushed whisper, as the music began to play, “Let’s take our places. You guys cut out the mutual admiration stuff for a while.”
Quinn and his best man, Professor Arturo, walked in from the side and assumed their places at the front, as did the pastor who was performing the ceremony. Then Max, Michael, and Alex, looking very dapper and smiling, joined the other ushers to escort the bridesmaids down the aisle.
Suddenly, as they neared the front, there was a small commotion, and gasps were heard from some of the guests, as Jung-Jo appeared, walking regally down the aisle, head held high, wearing a special-made tuxedo vest and a bow tie. Wade’s little sister walked beside him, carrying flowers that she dropped along the way. As Jung-Jo and the little flower girl neared the front, the music changed to “Here Comes The Bride,” and everyone turned to look.
There were gasps… then more gasps. Wade walked slowly down the aisle, on her father’s arm, a radiant smile on her face, wearing a stunning white wedding gown that for its sheer beauty and elegance could have rivaled anything a real princess might have worn. But it was her own smiling face that added the touch of perfection. Max glanced at Quinn and noticed that he looked stunned… and maybe just a little goofy. Max smiled. Fortunately, all eyes were on the bride-to-be. Quinn quickly realized that his jaw was hanging open and assumed a more dignified look. Even Max could not deny that Quinn did strike a handsome pose decked out in his tux, with a smile on his face. And as Wade stood beside him, it was hard not to think that the only thing missing was the carriage for this to be a fairytale wedding… the wedding of a prince and princess of legends. Obviously, the guests thought so. The sighs and ahs were audible, and not an eye in the crowd was dry.
“Friends, we are gathered together to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”
Quinn glanced at Wade and beamed, and Wade found that she had to struggle to keep her smile from growing bigger than her face, if that were possible. She certainly didn’t want to look like Alice’s Cheshire cat… all grin and no face. But she needn’t have been concerned. The guests loved it.
“…If there is anyone present who knows any cause why this couple should not be married let them speak now or forever hold their peace…”
Quinn glanced casually at the crowd and smiled… (They better not. I’ll send anyone who makes a peep to a world sooooo far away…)
“Who gives this woman away?”
“I do,” Wade’s father said, but Quinn only vaguely heard him. (It’s funny… I’ve cherished my independence… and yet… I feel like… Wade IS my independence now… and my future. It just feels right somehow. With Maggie I was never this sure.)
“Would you please face each other and join hands.”
Quinn took Wade’s hands in his and smiled.
(He looks like a god… my Adonis… I think I’m going to wake up and find out this was all a dream.)
(She followed me into hell… literally almost. She didn’t have to. She could have stayed in San Francisco in comfort. She didn’t have to go sliding through a hundred parallel words, risking her life a hundred times over… all for me. What did I ever do to deserve her? I can’t believe I came so close to losing her.)
“Quinn Mallory, do you take Wade Welles to be your wife… to love, honor, cherish, and protect her… forsaking all others and holding only to her forevermore?”
“I do.” (More than you’ll ever know.)
“Wade Welles, do you take Quinn Mallory to be your husband… to love, honor, cherish, and protect him… forsaking all others and holding only to him forevermore?”
“I do.” (God, just don’t let me wake up! If this is a dream, I don’t want to ever wake up.)
The pastor smiled then tried to look stern… “Throughout time, nothing has endured more than love or been more important than love. We are told that ‘God is Love.’ We are assured that ‘Love conquers all.’ It is love which brings you here today, the union of two hearts and two spirits. As your lives continue to interweave as one pattern, remember that love will make this a glorious union, and love will cause this union to endure.
Paul said, Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels but do not have love, I am only sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.
Though I have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love endures and is kind.
Love is not envious or jealous.
Love wants not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, it is not easily provoked, and thinks no evil.
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.
Where there are prophecies, they shall fail, where there be tongues, they shall cease, where there be knowledge, it shall vanish away…
So faith, hope, love remain -these three- but the greatest of these is love.”
The pastor stopped and looked at Quinn…
“Is there a ring?”
Jung-Jo perked up at the word “ring,” and he rubbed his head against Quinn. Quinn reached out and untied a small attachment from the bow tie around Jung-Jo’s neck, removing from it a ring, which he slipped onto Wade’s finger…
“Wade, with this ring, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. All that I am or ever will be I give to you… for as long as I shall live, and if possible, beyond that, to the end of time and further. All that we have seen together, experienced together, and struggled with together has bound us more closely to each other, but it is nothing compared to the new lives that await us now… as husband and wife.”
Jung-Jo purred quietly and rubbed against Wade, looking very contented. Wade reached out and removed the second attachment from Jung-Jo’s bow tie. Then she slipped it onto Quinn’s finger…
“Quinn, this ring is a perfect circle. It has no beginning and no end, and so shall our love be. I can’t remember when I started loving you, and I know in my heart and soul that I will never know the day when I don’t love you anymore. We are, and forever will be, one. Wherever you go, I will follow, because, of all the possessions, of all the riches, of all the material things that I could have in this world, there is none that I want more than you. Your love fills my heart and gives meaning to my life. It is the most important thing on this earth –or in any dimension- to me.”
Quinn was glad that he had already said his part, because he wasn’t sure that he would be able to speak now without his voice breaking. He wiped his eyes quickly and smiled.
“There is nothing more important than love… in any place in time… or in any culture,” the pastor continued, “I want to send you into your new lives with these thoughts… the first is an Apache blessing. It goes like this:
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life beyond.
Go now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life together.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.
And the second is a Cherokee prayer:
God in heaven above please protect the ones we love.
We honor all you created as we pledge our hearts and lives together.
We honor mother earth and ask for our marriage to be abundant and grow stronger through the seasons;
We honor fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts;
We honor wind and ask we sail though life safe and calm as in our father's arms;
We honor water… to clean and soothe our relationship… that it may never thirst for love;
With all the forces of the universe you created, we pray for harmony and true happiness as we forever grow young together. Amen.
Quinn Mallory… Wade Welles… I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Quinn grinned and swept Wade into his arms, kissing her with… well, not quite all of the passion he had pent up in him at the moment. Some of it would just have to wait. But Jung-Jo put one paw over his eyes, which brought giggles and laughter from the guests.
“We’re married,” Quinn said.
Wade nodded and smiled. At this moment, she didn’t care if she did look like Alice’s Cheshire cat.
<center>End of Chapter 44
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:01 pm
Sliding Into Antar
<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Final Voyage
Chapter 45
XLV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Daniel Pierce and the six men who had gone through the vortex with him huddled together under a ledge in a mountainous region of a parallel earth in which the KroMaggs had gained a tenuous control. They watched as something that looked like a “flying saucer” flew slowly by not far away… again. It was searching for them. It hadn’t taken long for the seven men to realize that this world was hostile. A few laser rays fired in their direction had been a pretty good clue. They had been forced to seek refuge almost as soon as they had tumbled out of the vortex.
“Sir, are we on another planet?” William Benson asked, looking around.
Pierce sighed with frustration and shook his head. “We’re in a parallel dimension… We’re still on earth. The aliens have taken over this earth. This is what happens when nobody in government has the guts to search out and eradicate the bastards and we have to put together a covert unit to do it. The aliens get a foothold and they take over.”
“Sir, I think we’re outnumbered.”
Pierce looked at Benson with disgust. “Tell me something I don’t know, Benson.”
“Well, I was just thinking… maybe we ought to retreat and regroup… You know… get reinforcements.”
“There are no reinforcements, Benson. It’s us against them. Get used to it.”
“How are we going to get back… sir?”
Pierce didn’t answer.
“I mean… if we’re stuck here… should we still call you… you know… Pierce?”
Pierce glared at Benson. “To you, I am Pierce.”
“Yes, sir. I just thought…”
“Don’t think, Benson. It gives you headaches.”
“Yes, sir.”
Benson sat down dejectedly and looked at Mack Carter. Carter shrugged… “It’s best to keep up the front, Will. We don’t want to slip up. If we do get back to our world, or if we capture or kill the aliens, it’s important that everyone still believes that Fletcher is Pierce. Pierce had the connections… three senators are in his pocket. If they ever find out that Pierce isn’t really Pierce… it would destroy the unit permanently. That’s why Fletcher had his face changed six months after Pierce disappeared… so when he ‘showed up’ again and explained that he had been abducted by the aliens and that they had horribly disfigured him and he had needed plastic surgery, the guys up there would believe it. It’s a perfect cover. We can’t do anything that might jeopardize it.”
Benson nodded. “I guess so. I had the aliens’ leader, the Evans kid, you know… in my sights… fourteen years ago. I had the red dot right on his heart, but Fletcher said wait! He wanted everyone to be in place… and we lost them.”
“You think that hasn’t chewed up my guts for the last fourteen years, Benson? I was there, too, you know. We all were. We almost had them… except somebody didn’t do their homework and didn’t know that the Guerin kid wasn’t graduating and would show up and save the others… on a motorbike!”
“Well, the lights going out suddenly like they did had a lot to do with it, too, Carter. I still think they did that themselves… with their alien powers.”
“What do you think really happened to Pierce, Benson?”
“What do you think? They got him. That body will never be found.”
“The aliens?”
“Yeah.”
Carter nodded. “That’s what I think, too.”
“HEADS UP!” Fletcher screamed, “THEY’RE HEADING OUR WAY!”
Carter, Benson, and the others watched as the saucer headed in their direction.
“Do you think they found us,” Scapparelli asked.
“We’ll know in a minute,” Carter replied, ducking down behind a small bluff under the ledge.
The UFO continued to come… straight toward the ledge. “I think you have your answer,” Fletcher said. “We can bring that thing down… the seven of us. We have automatic weapons. We just have to hit it right.” Fletcher waited until the craft was almost on top of them, then he leapt out and aimed his gun carefully, searching for a vulnerable point on the craft. He found it and started firing. The other six men followed his lead and fired, too. Moments later, the saucer tilted to one side, then it went down hard about a hundred meters from them. Fletcher and his men rushed to the craft to try to surprise the “aliens” as they came out… if the aliens survived the crash. But it was Fletcher and his men who wound up being caught in the trap. As soon as they were out from under the ledge, a group of KroMaggs rushed in behind them. Distracted by the UFO, Fletcher and his men didn’t notice the KroMaggs until it was too late.
“Ar Ga! Shto na kor!”
Fletcher whirled around and fired, but he did not have time to get a good aim. The KroMagg did. Fletcher crumpled to the ground, smoke pouring from a twelve inch hole that went all the way through his chest and out his back. He would not be getting back up.
The six men with Fletcher quickly tossed their guns down and raised their hands, but the KroMaggs picked one of them off anyway…
“That is what will happen to anyone who defies us,” the KroMagg who had fired said, as the body of Boris Ivanovich lay smoldering beside Fletcher’s, a twelve inch hole in his stomach. Sensing that they were doomed, one of the men, Mike Harkins, dove for the gun he had thrown away. He dodged the KroMagg’s ray and returned fire, hitting the KroMagg in the heart… or at least, right where the heart should have been. But the KroMagg didn’t fall, so Harkins shot him again… and again. Finally, the KroMagg fell, but it was an exercise in futility. There were eleven more, and they had him in hand immediately. One of the KroMaggs took Harkins’ gun from him and slowly bent it in half as Harkins watched. Then he grinned, and Harkins saw a mouth full of what could only be described as fangs. These creatures, whatever they were, were incredibly ugly. Harkins wondered if this was what Max Evans and his “gang” really looked like. He prepared himself to die. The two KroMaggs on either side of him, holding his arms, were huge, much bigger than himself… and strong as a team of oxen.
“Go ahead! Shoot me! At least I’ll die fighting!”
The KroMagg on his right laughed. “We have something better in mind for you. We need you… to work… with the other humans we have captured. You’re ours now.” The KroMagg turned the body of his dead KroMagg companion over with his foot and laughed again.
“Well, there’s no love lost between them,” Scapparelli whispered to Carter.
“What did you say?” the KroMagg asked, suddenly looking at Scapparelli.
“That you’re an ugly son of a…” Scapparelli started to say defiantly, but a large hand backhanded him hard enough to send him flying ten feet through the air. He landed with the breath knocked out of him and his lip bleeding.
The KroMagg stood over Scapparelli… bald headed… toothy grin… all seven feet of him, Scapparelli estimated. It was hard to believe that they were so technologically advanced and at the same time so primevally ugly and ruthless.
“The first thing you need to learn,” the KroMagg said, kicking Scapparelli in the side, “Is to respect a lady… if you’re going to work for us.”
“Carter looked at Benson, his eyes wide. “That’s a female? How do you tell?”
“You’ll learn to,” the KroMagg said, grabbing Carter by the feet and picking him up upside down with one hand to look him in the eyes. “I am a lady. Got that? The others here are not.”
“Go- Got it,” Carter choked.
Fletcher and Ivanovich were dead. There were five men left now, and every one of them knew that the rest of their lives, however long or short that might be, were going to be spent as slaves to these “aliens.” It was, arguably, better than what they had themselves planned to do to Max, Michael, Isabel, Liz, and Maria. The KroMaggs, ruthless as they were, had no white room to torture people in and didn’t try to slaughter kids at their graduation. They just had a need for workers… workers who would do very hard labor… as their slaves. They had a world to finish conquering and a KroMagg society to build, with all its infrastructure. Little did Fletcher’s men know that the KroMaggs were not aliens at all. They were a distinct line that had split off from the Neanderthals. In most dimensions, they had died out in prehistoric times… before ever becoming what these creatures were. But in a few dimensions, KroMaggs ruled.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
“We’re going to miss you guys,” Liz said, hugging Wade warmly and smiling at Quinn, “We won’t be here when you get back from your honeymoon.”
Wade smiled sympathetically. “I know. I hope you find your planet soon. Nobody knows better than we do how much you miss home.”
“I hope we meet again someday,” Quinn said, offering Max and then the others his hand and hugging the girls. “It’s been a great experience. I would really love to have had more time to talk with Varec. I wish we could see your planet. It must be beautiful.”
Professor Arturo nodded. “Indeed! I, for one, shall count myself forever fortunate to have met all of you… and your amazing pet saber tooth cat, Jung-Jo. It has been quite the adventure!”
“Yeah, you never thought you’d meet an alien who soaked cocoa puffs in Tabasco sauce, did you, Professor,” Alex said with a grin.
Professor Arturo chuckled, but Michael seemed unamused, and Alex knew that he would have to watch himself. Eventually, Michael would get him back, probably when he least expected it and in a way that would embarrass him the most. He would definitely have to be on his toes and alert. But it seemed worth the risk… at least at the moment.
“Varec has been keeping a record of where each Antar we visit is located,” Max said, “And we plan to revisit some of them… after we’ve found our way back to our own world… and once we know how to get there and get back without getting lost again.”
Quinn smiled sheepishly. “I guess that was our fault. It was our vortex that threw your ship off course. I wish we could do something to correct it.”
Max smiled. “It wasn’t your fault. It was just blind fate… dumb luck. Varec will figure out something. We’ll get back home.”
“I’ll do some calculations, too,” Quinn said, then he looked at Wade and grinned… “After the honeymoon.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Max said, “You won’t be able to get a message to us anyway where we’ll be. Enjoy your honeymoon.”
“We will,” Wade said enthusiastically, and Quinn nodded and grinned.
“I wanted to thank Jung Jo,” Wade added, “He was great.”
Max laughed. “Jung Jo loves to help. He’s a natural ham. If he could talk, he’d be thanking you for asking him to do it.”
“Well, give him a kiss for me,” Wade said.
Max looked at Michael. “I’m putting you in charge of that, Michael.”
“Thanks,” Michael said sarcastically.
“I’ll do it,” Liz said.
“Oh, by the way,” Quinn added, “That FBI guy you told us about… I think his name was Pierce… the one that was always chasing you guys… He showed up looking for you. I forgot to tell you.”
“Where is he?” Michael asked, suddenly going on full alert.
Quinn smiled. “In another dimension… on a KroMagg controlled world, I think. I opened the vortex and told him you guys went through it, and the dumb ass jumped into the vortex… All six of his men followed him.”
“Six?” Michael asked. “What did they look like?”
“Your usual goons,” Quinn said, trying to remember, “One of them had a long, jagged scar right here on his face and a tattoo of a dagger dripping blood on his left bicep. I remember that. He was very muscular.”
Michael’s eyes glazed over and he frowned… “Graduation. He was there at graduation. He’s the only one I actually saw. I’ll never forget him. He’s burned into my memory. Did he have motorbike tread marks down his back?”
Quinn laughed. “I didn’t check.”
“He did,” Michael said, with an air of certainty. “When I was going into the auditorium, he was standing on the steps outside. I guess he had arrived late. He had a rifle with one of those laser scopes on it, and he had the red dot on Maria’s head. The son of a…” Michael stopped and looked at Wade… “Sorry.”
Wade smiled. “It’s alright. My ears have heard worse. They won’t fall off.”
“He was going to blow Maria’s brains out right there at graduation, so I ran over him on my way up the stairs. When I came back out with Max on the bike with me, the guy was still lying there, so I ran over him again on the way back down. He should have a good set of tread marks on his back.”
“I would’ve loved to have seen that,” Quinn said, amused. “But where he is right now, he’s probably wishing that was all the abuse he was getting… if he’s still alive.”
Michael smiled. “And they can’t get back here, right?”
“Not a chance,” Quinn said, holding up the timer, “I’ve got the timer. They’re stuck there… with the KroMaggs.”
“Good. On behalf of our doubles in this dimension, wherever they are, we all thank you. And it will make your lives easier, too. Who knows if they would have decided that you guys were aliens or something, too, having been to parallel words and all. So I say good riddance to them.”
Max nodded. “I agree with Michael. With them gone, you guys… and our doubles… wherever they are… can live in peace. Have a happy honeymoon!”
“You’ll remember to thank Jung Jo?” Wade asked.
“I’ll give him a kiss and a hug for you,” Liz said, smiling. “You guys enjoy yourselves.”
And so, with a few heartfelt goodbyes, the visit to Quinn and Wade’s earth came to an end.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As the New Granolith rose into the sky, Quinn and Wade watched…
“We’ll meet again, my friends,” Quinn said, waving, “I feel it.”
Max sighed and looked at Michael. “Well, do we head into the next dimension?”
“We should try Antar in this dimension first,” Michael said, “We’re already here.”
“Yeah, but Pierce is still alive in this dimension. In our dimension, you killed him.”
“That’s true,” Michael agreed… then he thought for awhile… “But, you know, Max, you never can tell about things… I mean, things aren’t always what they look like. Remember… Quinn and the others were home once before and turned around and left because something looked wrong but turned out to be… you know… not what it looked like.”
Max nodded. “You’re right. We should visit Antar in this dimension while we’re here… just to be thorough.”
“Varec would approve,” Michael said, smiling.
Max gave Michael a friendly shove and smiled.
It took four days to reach Antar. It would have taken a couple of more days, but Varec was always finding ways to increase the ship’s speed and efficiency. As the planet came into sight, Max and Michael watched longingly, along with Liz and Maria, from the bridge.
“Every time I see Antar, I get this lump in my throat,” Liz said softly, her voice catching, “Even when it’s not ours. It just looks like home.”
The others nodded.
“Take us closer,” Max said to Michael, “We’ll radio the control center for directions and make our final decision about visiting this Antar after we’ve made radio contact.”
Michael nodded. Three minutes later, the ship approached the Antarian space controlled zone, still a few thousand miles out, and Max suddenly gasped and sat bolt upright.
“Max! What’s wrong?” Michael asked, setting the ship on automatic and jumping up to check on him. Max stood there, his eyes staring at the planet below, his face white.
“Max?” Liz said, feeling Max’s head and holding his hand to make sure that he was alright. As soon as she touched his hand, she let out a cry and froze, then tears started to flow down her cheeks.
“Liz? Are you okay? What’s the matter, chica?” Maria asked. She hadn’t used that word in years… She wasn’t sure why she did now.
“We’re home,” Liz said, “The jah-ees are welcoming Max back. They have that mental connection.”
“All the Antars we visited… I never once thought about that,” Max said, shaking in spite of all attempts not to, “I never felt the connection to the jah-ees on any of them. On one Antar, I contacted them myself, but that pre-existing, sort of automatic connection I have with our jah-ees wasn’t there. A moment ago, it flooded through me like a light coming on…” Max turned to the others and smiled… “We’re home.”
As soon as Max said it, cheers went up all over the ship, and the word spread like a wild fire. “Home.” The word sounded too good to be true! Minutes later, Alex was walking around passing out party hats, noise makers, and eggnog. Isabel laughed. “Where in the world did you find these, Alex?”
“I picked them up back on Quinn and Wade’s earth. I figured we’d use them, with New Years Eve coming up. But now we’ve got something to really celebrate! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We’ll pop the champagne when we land. I don’t want Michael and Max to crash the ship. The eggnog’s off the grocery store shelf. It’s not spiked.”
Everyone laughed and held up their glasses, as Alex poured eggnog for them, and at that moment, the jah-ees arrived, looping and spinning joyously around the New Granolith as it entered Antar’s atmosphere. Max held up his glass in a toast to his old friends…
“Happy New Year, my friends… I’m glad to be home.”
It was a sentiment that was echoed and reechoed all over the bridge, because by now EVERYONE was on the bridge…
<center>“HAPPY NEW YEAR!</center>
The voices were almost drowned out in the noise and the cheers, but the sentiments were felt in the heart…
<center>WE’RE HOME!</center>
<center><<<<>>>> Epilogue <<<<>>>></center>
Wade turned on her computer…
“You have mail!” the mechanical voice proclaimed happily.
Scanning through the list quickly, Wade sighed. “759,521 emails… all spam, I’m guessing, from while we were gone.”
Quinn smiled. “Use the spam monster I installed for you before we left.”
Wade nodded and clicked the key… “That did it. Now I have one email and 759,520 spam messages. She clicked the key again, and the spams disappeared into the mouth of a ravenous spam beast that ripped them apart, chewed them up, and swallowed them with gusto… something Quinn had dreamed up.
Wade raised her eyebrows slightly, as she opened the single valid email, and a smile came over her face…
“Hi Wade! We took your advice. It was something of a challenge to find you in a different dimension, but we did it. Thanks for the idea. It’s cool! We would love to hear from you.” Rahn@WWAntar
<center><<<<>>>> The End <<<<>>>></center>
Travel with Max and the others to Antar to witness the emotional reunions with their children and families. Just hop on the UFO above (It’s a link to chapter 67 of The Four Faces Of Rath, “Out Of A Nightmare”). You haven’t read the whole story till you’ve been there for the reunion. And it’s New Years Eve!
<center>HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!</center>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Final Voyage
Chapter 45
XLV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Daniel Pierce and the six men who had gone through the vortex with him huddled together under a ledge in a mountainous region of a parallel earth in which the KroMaggs had gained a tenuous control. They watched as something that looked like a “flying saucer” flew slowly by not far away… again. It was searching for them. It hadn’t taken long for the seven men to realize that this world was hostile. A few laser rays fired in their direction had been a pretty good clue. They had been forced to seek refuge almost as soon as they had tumbled out of the vortex.
“Sir, are we on another planet?” William Benson asked, looking around.
Pierce sighed with frustration and shook his head. “We’re in a parallel dimension… We’re still on earth. The aliens have taken over this earth. This is what happens when nobody in government has the guts to search out and eradicate the bastards and we have to put together a covert unit to do it. The aliens get a foothold and they take over.”
“Sir, I think we’re outnumbered.”
Pierce looked at Benson with disgust. “Tell me something I don’t know, Benson.”
“Well, I was just thinking… maybe we ought to retreat and regroup… You know… get reinforcements.”
“There are no reinforcements, Benson. It’s us against them. Get used to it.”
“How are we going to get back… sir?”
Pierce didn’t answer.
“I mean… if we’re stuck here… should we still call you… you know… Pierce?”
Pierce glared at Benson. “To you, I am Pierce.”
“Yes, sir. I just thought…”
“Don’t think, Benson. It gives you headaches.”
“Yes, sir.”
Benson sat down dejectedly and looked at Mack Carter. Carter shrugged… “It’s best to keep up the front, Will. We don’t want to slip up. If we do get back to our world, or if we capture or kill the aliens, it’s important that everyone still believes that Fletcher is Pierce. Pierce had the connections… three senators are in his pocket. If they ever find out that Pierce isn’t really Pierce… it would destroy the unit permanently. That’s why Fletcher had his face changed six months after Pierce disappeared… so when he ‘showed up’ again and explained that he had been abducted by the aliens and that they had horribly disfigured him and he had needed plastic surgery, the guys up there would believe it. It’s a perfect cover. We can’t do anything that might jeopardize it.”
Benson nodded. “I guess so. I had the aliens’ leader, the Evans kid, you know… in my sights… fourteen years ago. I had the red dot right on his heart, but Fletcher said wait! He wanted everyone to be in place… and we lost them.”
“You think that hasn’t chewed up my guts for the last fourteen years, Benson? I was there, too, you know. We all were. We almost had them… except somebody didn’t do their homework and didn’t know that the Guerin kid wasn’t graduating and would show up and save the others… on a motorbike!”
“Well, the lights going out suddenly like they did had a lot to do with it, too, Carter. I still think they did that themselves… with their alien powers.”
“What do you think really happened to Pierce, Benson?”
“What do you think? They got him. That body will never be found.”
“The aliens?”
“Yeah.”
Carter nodded. “That’s what I think, too.”
“HEADS UP!” Fletcher screamed, “THEY’RE HEADING OUR WAY!”
Carter, Benson, and the others watched as the saucer headed in their direction.
“Do you think they found us,” Scapparelli asked.
“We’ll know in a minute,” Carter replied, ducking down behind a small bluff under the ledge.
The UFO continued to come… straight toward the ledge. “I think you have your answer,” Fletcher said. “We can bring that thing down… the seven of us. We have automatic weapons. We just have to hit it right.” Fletcher waited until the craft was almost on top of them, then he leapt out and aimed his gun carefully, searching for a vulnerable point on the craft. He found it and started firing. The other six men followed his lead and fired, too. Moments later, the saucer tilted to one side, then it went down hard about a hundred meters from them. Fletcher and his men rushed to the craft to try to surprise the “aliens” as they came out… if the aliens survived the crash. But it was Fletcher and his men who wound up being caught in the trap. As soon as they were out from under the ledge, a group of KroMaggs rushed in behind them. Distracted by the UFO, Fletcher and his men didn’t notice the KroMaggs until it was too late.
“Ar Ga! Shto na kor!”
Fletcher whirled around and fired, but he did not have time to get a good aim. The KroMagg did. Fletcher crumpled to the ground, smoke pouring from a twelve inch hole that went all the way through his chest and out his back. He would not be getting back up.
The six men with Fletcher quickly tossed their guns down and raised their hands, but the KroMaggs picked one of them off anyway…
“That is what will happen to anyone who defies us,” the KroMagg who had fired said, as the body of Boris Ivanovich lay smoldering beside Fletcher’s, a twelve inch hole in his stomach. Sensing that they were doomed, one of the men, Mike Harkins, dove for the gun he had thrown away. He dodged the KroMagg’s ray and returned fire, hitting the KroMagg in the heart… or at least, right where the heart should have been. But the KroMagg didn’t fall, so Harkins shot him again… and again. Finally, the KroMagg fell, but it was an exercise in futility. There were eleven more, and they had him in hand immediately. One of the KroMaggs took Harkins’ gun from him and slowly bent it in half as Harkins watched. Then he grinned, and Harkins saw a mouth full of what could only be described as fangs. These creatures, whatever they were, were incredibly ugly. Harkins wondered if this was what Max Evans and his “gang” really looked like. He prepared himself to die. The two KroMaggs on either side of him, holding his arms, were huge, much bigger than himself… and strong as a team of oxen.
“Go ahead! Shoot me! At least I’ll die fighting!”
The KroMagg on his right laughed. “We have something better in mind for you. We need you… to work… with the other humans we have captured. You’re ours now.” The KroMagg turned the body of his dead KroMagg companion over with his foot and laughed again.
“Well, there’s no love lost between them,” Scapparelli whispered to Carter.
“What did you say?” the KroMagg asked, suddenly looking at Scapparelli.
“That you’re an ugly son of a…” Scapparelli started to say defiantly, but a large hand backhanded him hard enough to send him flying ten feet through the air. He landed with the breath knocked out of him and his lip bleeding.
The KroMagg stood over Scapparelli… bald headed… toothy grin… all seven feet of him, Scapparelli estimated. It was hard to believe that they were so technologically advanced and at the same time so primevally ugly and ruthless.
“The first thing you need to learn,” the KroMagg said, kicking Scapparelli in the side, “Is to respect a lady… if you’re going to work for us.”
“Carter looked at Benson, his eyes wide. “That’s a female? How do you tell?”
“You’ll learn to,” the KroMagg said, grabbing Carter by the feet and picking him up upside down with one hand to look him in the eyes. “I am a lady. Got that? The others here are not.”
“Go- Got it,” Carter choked.
Fletcher and Ivanovich were dead. There were five men left now, and every one of them knew that the rest of their lives, however long or short that might be, were going to be spent as slaves to these “aliens.” It was, arguably, better than what they had themselves planned to do to Max, Michael, Isabel, Liz, and Maria. The KroMaggs, ruthless as they were, had no white room to torture people in and didn’t try to slaughter kids at their graduation. They just had a need for workers… workers who would do very hard labor… as their slaves. They had a world to finish conquering and a KroMagg society to build, with all its infrastructure. Little did Fletcher’s men know that the KroMaggs were not aliens at all. They were a distinct line that had split off from the Neanderthals. In most dimensions, they had died out in prehistoric times… before ever becoming what these creatures were. But in a few dimensions, KroMaggs ruled.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
“We’re going to miss you guys,” Liz said, hugging Wade warmly and smiling at Quinn, “We won’t be here when you get back from your honeymoon.”
Wade smiled sympathetically. “I know. I hope you find your planet soon. Nobody knows better than we do how much you miss home.”
“I hope we meet again someday,” Quinn said, offering Max and then the others his hand and hugging the girls. “It’s been a great experience. I would really love to have had more time to talk with Varec. I wish we could see your planet. It must be beautiful.”
Professor Arturo nodded. “Indeed! I, for one, shall count myself forever fortunate to have met all of you… and your amazing pet saber tooth cat, Jung-Jo. It has been quite the adventure!”
“Yeah, you never thought you’d meet an alien who soaked cocoa puffs in Tabasco sauce, did you, Professor,” Alex said with a grin.
Professor Arturo chuckled, but Michael seemed unamused, and Alex knew that he would have to watch himself. Eventually, Michael would get him back, probably when he least expected it and in a way that would embarrass him the most. He would definitely have to be on his toes and alert. But it seemed worth the risk… at least at the moment.
“Varec has been keeping a record of where each Antar we visit is located,” Max said, “And we plan to revisit some of them… after we’ve found our way back to our own world… and once we know how to get there and get back without getting lost again.”
Quinn smiled sheepishly. “I guess that was our fault. It was our vortex that threw your ship off course. I wish we could do something to correct it.”
Max smiled. “It wasn’t your fault. It was just blind fate… dumb luck. Varec will figure out something. We’ll get back home.”
“I’ll do some calculations, too,” Quinn said, then he looked at Wade and grinned… “After the honeymoon.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Max said, “You won’t be able to get a message to us anyway where we’ll be. Enjoy your honeymoon.”
“We will,” Wade said enthusiastically, and Quinn nodded and grinned.
“I wanted to thank Jung Jo,” Wade added, “He was great.”
Max laughed. “Jung Jo loves to help. He’s a natural ham. If he could talk, he’d be thanking you for asking him to do it.”
“Well, give him a kiss for me,” Wade said.
Max looked at Michael. “I’m putting you in charge of that, Michael.”
“Thanks,” Michael said sarcastically.
“I’ll do it,” Liz said.
“Oh, by the way,” Quinn added, “That FBI guy you told us about… I think his name was Pierce… the one that was always chasing you guys… He showed up looking for you. I forgot to tell you.”
“Where is he?” Michael asked, suddenly going on full alert.
Quinn smiled. “In another dimension… on a KroMagg controlled world, I think. I opened the vortex and told him you guys went through it, and the dumb ass jumped into the vortex… All six of his men followed him.”
“Six?” Michael asked. “What did they look like?”
“Your usual goons,” Quinn said, trying to remember, “One of them had a long, jagged scar right here on his face and a tattoo of a dagger dripping blood on his left bicep. I remember that. He was very muscular.”
Michael’s eyes glazed over and he frowned… “Graduation. He was there at graduation. He’s the only one I actually saw. I’ll never forget him. He’s burned into my memory. Did he have motorbike tread marks down his back?”
Quinn laughed. “I didn’t check.”
“He did,” Michael said, with an air of certainty. “When I was going into the auditorium, he was standing on the steps outside. I guess he had arrived late. He had a rifle with one of those laser scopes on it, and he had the red dot on Maria’s head. The son of a…” Michael stopped and looked at Wade… “Sorry.”
Wade smiled. “It’s alright. My ears have heard worse. They won’t fall off.”
“He was going to blow Maria’s brains out right there at graduation, so I ran over him on my way up the stairs. When I came back out with Max on the bike with me, the guy was still lying there, so I ran over him again on the way back down. He should have a good set of tread marks on his back.”
“I would’ve loved to have seen that,” Quinn said, amused. “But where he is right now, he’s probably wishing that was all the abuse he was getting… if he’s still alive.”
Michael smiled. “And they can’t get back here, right?”
“Not a chance,” Quinn said, holding up the timer, “I’ve got the timer. They’re stuck there… with the KroMaggs.”
“Good. On behalf of our doubles in this dimension, wherever they are, we all thank you. And it will make your lives easier, too. Who knows if they would have decided that you guys were aliens or something, too, having been to parallel words and all. So I say good riddance to them.”
Max nodded. “I agree with Michael. With them gone, you guys… and our doubles… wherever they are… can live in peace. Have a happy honeymoon!”
“You’ll remember to thank Jung Jo?” Wade asked.
“I’ll give him a kiss and a hug for you,” Liz said, smiling. “You guys enjoy yourselves.”
And so, with a few heartfelt goodbyes, the visit to Quinn and Wade’s earth came to an end.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As the New Granolith rose into the sky, Quinn and Wade watched…
“We’ll meet again, my friends,” Quinn said, waving, “I feel it.”
Max sighed and looked at Michael. “Well, do we head into the next dimension?”
“We should try Antar in this dimension first,” Michael said, “We’re already here.”
“Yeah, but Pierce is still alive in this dimension. In our dimension, you killed him.”
“That’s true,” Michael agreed… then he thought for awhile… “But, you know, Max, you never can tell about things… I mean, things aren’t always what they look like. Remember… Quinn and the others were home once before and turned around and left because something looked wrong but turned out to be… you know… not what it looked like.”
Max nodded. “You’re right. We should visit Antar in this dimension while we’re here… just to be thorough.”
“Varec would approve,” Michael said, smiling.
Max gave Michael a friendly shove and smiled.
It took four days to reach Antar. It would have taken a couple of more days, but Varec was always finding ways to increase the ship’s speed and efficiency. As the planet came into sight, Max and Michael watched longingly, along with Liz and Maria, from the bridge.
“Every time I see Antar, I get this lump in my throat,” Liz said softly, her voice catching, “Even when it’s not ours. It just looks like home.”
The others nodded.
“Take us closer,” Max said to Michael, “We’ll radio the control center for directions and make our final decision about visiting this Antar after we’ve made radio contact.”
Michael nodded. Three minutes later, the ship approached the Antarian space controlled zone, still a few thousand miles out, and Max suddenly gasped and sat bolt upright.
“Max! What’s wrong?” Michael asked, setting the ship on automatic and jumping up to check on him. Max stood there, his eyes staring at the planet below, his face white.
“Max?” Liz said, feeling Max’s head and holding his hand to make sure that he was alright. As soon as she touched his hand, she let out a cry and froze, then tears started to flow down her cheeks.
“Liz? Are you okay? What’s the matter, chica?” Maria asked. She hadn’t used that word in years… She wasn’t sure why she did now.
“We’re home,” Liz said, “The jah-ees are welcoming Max back. They have that mental connection.”
“All the Antars we visited… I never once thought about that,” Max said, shaking in spite of all attempts not to, “I never felt the connection to the jah-ees on any of them. On one Antar, I contacted them myself, but that pre-existing, sort of automatic connection I have with our jah-ees wasn’t there. A moment ago, it flooded through me like a light coming on…” Max turned to the others and smiled… “We’re home.”
As soon as Max said it, cheers went up all over the ship, and the word spread like a wild fire. “Home.” The word sounded too good to be true! Minutes later, Alex was walking around passing out party hats, noise makers, and eggnog. Isabel laughed. “Where in the world did you find these, Alex?”
“I picked them up back on Quinn and Wade’s earth. I figured we’d use them, with New Years Eve coming up. But now we’ve got something to really celebrate! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We’ll pop the champagne when we land. I don’t want Michael and Max to crash the ship. The eggnog’s off the grocery store shelf. It’s not spiked.”
Everyone laughed and held up their glasses, as Alex poured eggnog for them, and at that moment, the jah-ees arrived, looping and spinning joyously around the New Granolith as it entered Antar’s atmosphere. Max held up his glass in a toast to his old friends…
“Happy New Year, my friends… I’m glad to be home.”
It was a sentiment that was echoed and reechoed all over the bridge, because by now EVERYONE was on the bridge…
<center>“HAPPY NEW YEAR!</center>
The voices were almost drowned out in the noise and the cheers, but the sentiments were felt in the heart…
<center>WE’RE HOME!</center>
<center><<<<>>>> Epilogue <<<<>>>></center>
Wade turned on her computer…
“You have mail!” the mechanical voice proclaimed happily.
Scanning through the list quickly, Wade sighed. “759,521 emails… all spam, I’m guessing, from while we were gone.”
Quinn smiled. “Use the spam monster I installed for you before we left.”
Wade nodded and clicked the key… “That did it. Now I have one email and 759,520 spam messages. She clicked the key again, and the spams disappeared into the mouth of a ravenous spam beast that ripped them apart, chewed them up, and swallowed them with gusto… something Quinn had dreamed up.
Wade raised her eyebrows slightly, as she opened the single valid email, and a smile came over her face…
“Hi Wade! We took your advice. It was something of a challenge to find you in a different dimension, but we did it. Thanks for the idea. It’s cool! We would love to hear from you.” Rahn@WWAntar
<center><<<<>>>> The End <<<<>>>></center>
Travel with Max and the others to Antar to witness the emotional reunions with their children and families. Just hop on the UFO above (It’s a link to chapter 67 of The Four Faces Of Rath, “Out Of A Nightmare”). You haven’t read the whole story till you’ve been there for the reunion. And it’s New Years Eve!
<center>HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!</center>