Roswell Fanatics

The Four Faces of Rath



The Rescuers

Chapter 60

LX



Eight hours had passed since Max and the others had begun to wake up from their stupor after partaking of Jim’s unusual Thanksgiving Day Nan-Torel split-tail turkey dinner. The “turkey,” which was entirely harmless to full-Antarians and to anyone else born on Antar, had rendered the “earthlings,” including Kyle, Alex, Max, Isabel, Michael, Amy, and Tess, along with Jim and Kathleen and Dan and Diane, effectively unable to think of anything but love… then sleep. Kyle’s wife, Jeliya, and Tess’ husband, Rayylar, who were full Antarians and therefore unaffected by the turkey, had decided to just go with the flow and enjoy their mates’ affectionate “condition” while it lasted. In fact, Jeliya and Rayylar had gladly accepted leftovers to take home with them when Kathleen had offered them some.

Perhaps the most surprising thing, though, was that, unlike with drugs or alcohol, once the effects of the turkey had worn off, everyone had awakened clear-minded and feeling refreshed rather than with the expected hangover or headache. Max had been the first to awaken. He had panicked when he realized what had happened, thinking that a considerable amount of time had been lost while they were sleeping off their unusual dinner. He was relieved to learn that only a few hours had passed and they were still on schedule. After a bit of laughing and joking about what had happened, the guests had all freshened up and prepared to return to their own homes. Those going with Max and Michael to earth had said their good-byes to the others and had quickly gathered up their belongings…

Max had turned to Jim again… “Jim, you really should come with us to earth. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling you might be needed.”

Jim had smiled and shook his head. “You don’t need me, Max. You just think you do. I’m sure there’s nothing on earth that you and Michael can’t handle together. Besides, you’re going to an entirely different dimension. You know how freaky it was to me just to leave earth and come here!”

“Yeah, but you’d be going back to earth,” Michael replied. “You know earth already. It’s not an alien planet to you.”

“It’s a different dimension… that’s alien enough.”

“Suit yourself,” Max said.

Now Jim was sitting in his favorite chair reading the Antar News, and his guests were gone. He was alone with Kathleen and Danyy, his younger son, who was playing with his pawgor friends out in the yard. Jim looked up and started to say something, but then he looked back at his newspaper.

“What were you going to say, Jim?”

“Aw, it was nothing, Kath.”

“Must have been something. You seem to have something on your mind.”

Jim folded his newspaper up and laid it beside the chair.

“Do you think I should have gone with them, Kath… to earth… in that Dimension Y or whatever Varec named it?”

“That would have to be your decision,” Kathleen said. “We’d miss you here… but if you felt like they needed you…”

“Well, see, that’s just it, Kath. I don’t know what I’m feeling. It’s gnawing at me. I don’t know why they’d need me. Max and Michael are quite able to take care of themselves… They don’t need me to follow them around and change their diapers. But… something in the back of my mind keeps gnawing at me. Maybe it’s some kind of premonition, I don’t know.”

“Premonitions can be pretty powerful, Jim. I know. Usually, there’s a reason for them. Maybe it’s because we know something in our minds that we don’t want to admit, I don’t know, or maybe it’s a psychic thing or something.” She smiled. “Maybe your turkey made you psychic, Jim.”

“That turkey made me a fool,” Jim said with an embarrassed laugh.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jim. It was a hit. Next year I’ll bet they’ll all be begging you to have it again.”

“And listen to me sing love songs to you again?”

Kathleen laughed. “You have a great voice, Jim. I loved it! So did they.”

“They were drunker than I thought,” Jim said with a grin. “But they did, didn’t they?”

Kathleen nodded.

“Well… we’ll see about next year next year. What do I do about this premonition?”



**********


Max looked over the list of supplies and the list of maintenance items that had been done and checked off each item with Varec, as the chief foreman announced that it had been done and checked out. It appeared that everything was in good shape and the new granolith was ready to fly again. Max breathed a deep sigh.

“I don’t know why, Michael… but I love this ship! With the spheres, we can go almost anywhere instantly nowadays… without much danger. I thought we might never have a chance to use the new granolith again. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of looking forward to this.”

Michael smiled. “I know. We have had a lot of good times on this baby, haven’t we?”

Max grinned, and Michael looked back at the ship, his own eyes reflecting more than a bit of admiration for the mammoth vessel that had ferried them to Antar and back to earth several times.

“You’ll have twelve days for you and Liz to enjoy the arboretum again,” Michael added with a wry grin.

Max cast Michael a sideways glance and smiled slightly. “And I suppose you and Maria were studying the stars all the time up there in the observatory… with Zorel guarding the door…”

Michael shrugged. “Something like that.”

Max smiled a knowing smile. “And that rumor about naked mermaids in the pool under the waterfall…”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, Max.”

“Jim’s Nan-Torel turkey wiped your memory out?”

“That was probably it.”

“I thought so.”

“But, hey, Max, with Alex and Iz onboard, you know, I practically have to book the observatory several days in advance for Maria and me to get a chance to use it.”

“Well, you know how they are about the stars and all, Michael.”

“Um hm. Believe me! I know what’s going on up there. The stars aren’t the only things being studied in there, Max. There’s a lot of hands on science going on when Alex and Iz are in there together.”

“You’re a dirty old man, Michael.”

“I resent that! I’m not old! Besides, I’m right.”

“Okay, you’re a right dirty old man… or young man… whatever.”

“Ah ha! You admit it then!”

“That you’re a dirty old man? Sure.”

“No, that Alex and Iz… you know.”

“And Maria’s just tutoring you in astronomy when you guys are up there, right?”

“Could be.”

“Or could NOT be,” Max said with a grin. “Don’t play the innocent, Michael. I know you. What do you want?”

“Well… a little more time in the observatory would be nice. Maybe you could help me convince Alex and Iz that there are other places on the ship just as… cozy.”

Max smiled. “You’ll just have to get there first, Michael. Besides, you and Maria have something to fall back on if the observatory’s occupied… you’re mermaids. Well… she’s a mermaid. I guess you’d be the creature from the black lagoon.”

Michael grabbed Max by the throat and pretended to strangle him. “Well, if that’s what you want swimming around in the arboretum pool…” He grinned and turned to walk away.

Max stood for a moment, thinking about what Michael had said. Then he shook his head.

“No… No, I’m not getting into this. But that was a damn good argument, Michael!”

Max turned around to see Jim Valenti standing there.

“You still got room for one more, Max?”

Max nodded and gave Jim a friendly slap on the arm. Decided to join us, huh?”

“Yeah, I just keep having this feeling that you guys will need me.”

“Well, I told you that, Jim.”

“Yeah, I know. But you know I never listen to that kind of stuff, Max.”

“So why’d you listen now?”

“I wasn’t going to… Call it premonition or something.”

“Okay. Call it what you want, Jim. I’m just glad to have you onboard. You coming alone?”

“Yeah, Kath is staying here with Danyy. What about your kids… and Liz?”

“Liz and Maria are coming; the children aren’t. We don’t know what we might come up against. The palace staff and Kyle and Jeliya are watching them all while we’re away. Alex and Isabel are coming. Tess and Rayylar are coming, too…”

“So… you’re totally okay with Tess being around now, Max?”

Max shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be? Those things happened a long time ago… in a timeline that doesn’t exist anymore. It took me a long time to fully realize that, but I think I do now. I have to judge people for who they are in this life. Besides, Tess has been a big help on our other trips. She probably saved all our lives that time in the mountains. And her abilities can be very useful.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

Varec waved at Max from the entrance to the ship. Max waved back.

“We’re ready to take off, Jim. Let’s go onboard. I think everyone else is onboard already.”

Max took the ascension chamber up to the control deck, where he found Michael preparing for their departure. Max sat down in the pilot’s seat and held his hand over a handprint on the control panel for a moment. It began to glow. Michael, in the co-pilot’s seat, held his hand over another handprint, and it began to glow, too. Then he inserted a crystal into a pre-formed slot on the control panel, and the huge ship began to rise. The roof of the mammoth hangar-lab had already been rolled back to allow the ship to depart, which was no small operation. The ship measured 178,403 donish, about 15,800 feet –not quite three miles- across and was seven stories high, and the hangar had to be large enough to house it. It always took the better part of an hour just to roll the roof open to allow the ship to depart. The roof opened in concentric sections, like the lens of a camera, each section retracting perfectly into its own individual compartment in the rim.

Now, with the roof fully opened, the ship floated out, rising into the sky above. As it rose, it rotated eighty degrees and began to move forward, turning out over the Golden Sea. The silvery metallic saucer glinted in the sunlight as it made its way gracefully toward the heavens… first slowly… then with a sudden burst of speed that left a beautiful converging contrail of starlight disappearing into the cosmos.

Below the contrail several large birds circled and appeared to interact with some slipstream fighters, small jets that always gave an escort to the Antarian mother ship whenever it left Antarian soil. The birds, with thirty-foot wingspans, were actually slightly larger than the small jet planes that the pilot escorts flew, but the pilots were used to seeing these birds now. The seven pilots all fell into formation, each pilot gave one final salute toward the mother ship, which by now had disappeared into space, then they pulled back on their yokes, sending their jets streaking upward, each one splitting off and falling over like the fire falling from a sparkler. Then they streaked off toward their home base.

The birds, which were once believed to be a myth in Antar, before Max befriended one, circled one final time, offering their own special good-bye to the ship… and to Max in particular. Onboard the ship, far out in space, Max smiled. He and the jah-ee communicated telepathically…

“Thank you, my friends. I will return. I promise.”



tbc

Coming: The ship attempts to break through the dimensional barriers, leading to some unexpectedly frightening moments. Onboard the new granolith, the “rescuers” wonder if they will ever get the chance to give that help… or if they’ll ever see Antar again.

The Four Faces of Rath



Romance On The Dimensional Rift

Chapter 61

LXI



Max set the controls on automatic and sat back to relax for awhile with Liz at his side. The fact is, Varec had preprogrammed the ship to traverse the dimensions and find earth in the dimension that he had named the “Y Dimension” automatically. However, Max still preferred to be at the controls… if for no other reason than to monitor the ship’s progress and make sure that everything was on track and running smoothly.

There was a time to monitor the ship’s progress, though… and there was a time for more personal pursuits. With everything on track and running like a Swiss watch, Max leaned back and smiled at Liz.

“Everything okay?” Liz asked.

Max nodded. “With the ship it is.”

Liz sat down on Max’s lap and kissed him.

“How about now?”

Max gave Liz a half smile, “Yeah… I think some additional systems just came on line. You want to try again?”

Liz put her lips against Max’s and opened her mouth slightly, savoring his lips and mouth as though they were her favorite candy… which, as a matter of fact, they probably were. At the same time, she unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hand over his chest. She placed the other hand behind his head, enjoying the feel of Max’s hair between her fingers as she allowed herself to be lost in the passion of their kiss. After several minutes, Liz stopped and looked at Max again with a smile…

“How about now?”

Max nodded and caught his breath. “Oh Yeah! Now everything is up and running! All systems are now… definitely operational! You can count on it! Whew!”

Liz smiled and put her arms around Max’s neck then pressed her lips to his again. Outside their window, the stars flew by in the darkness of space, as Liz pulled Max out of his seat onto the floor with her.

“How about the warp drive, Max? Shall we test it out, too… just to be sure?”

In other parts of the ship, things were also going well… perhaps monotonously well. Michael had finished playing a game of Jaht Roo with Jim and had beat Jim handily… again. Jim was actually getting pretty good at playing Jaht Roo and was able to give Michael a real run for his money these days. It was a tribute to Jim’s expertise that Michael would play him at all. Still, Jim had never been able to beat Michael at the game. Only Max… and occasionally Varec… had ever been able to beat Michael at Jaht Roo.

Michael had taken to the strategic elements of Jaht Roo like a fish to water. It was his game. But in spite of this, he still could only beat Max or Varec about half the time. Max had a sharpness of concentration and ability to make fast mental computations that made him hard to beat, and Varec had a scientific mind that lent itself to complex computations and unusual gambits… ways to win that no one else had ever thought of before and that were therefore hard to defend against. Michael had spent a lot of hours dissecting and analyzing Varec’s unusual “moves.” More often than not, though, Varec himself did not remember exactly what he had done. He simply responded to each move as a new challenge, coming up with radical and new responses each time. It was this fact that made him so hard to beat.

“Looks like I’m gonna need to change my clothes,” Jim said, standing up and wiping some of the light sugary dough off his shirt.

In the game of Jaht Roo, the players make strategic moves with small “space ship” playing pieces made of sugar dough. If a player miscalculates and lands on a claimed or mined space, his ship might be blown up by a puff of air from beneath the table, usually resulting in someone… or everyone… getting candy-cottony jaht roo strands on themselves.

Michael smiled a satisfied smile. “Yeah, you got kind of blasted when I blew those last ships up. But if you don’t want to have those clothes washed, you could probably just eat ‘em now… They’re sugar coated.”

Jim stuck his finger in his mouth and nodded. “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Good idea!”

Michael grinned. He knew Jim was kidding, but the image of Jim eating his shirt made him smile anyway.

Walking in the door just as Michael and Jim were finishing their game, Maria sat down in Michael’s lap and kissed him.

“How’d your game go?”

Michael gave her that patented half grin that meant, “What do you think?”

“I take it you won.”

Michael nodded. “Was there ever any other possibility?”

“You might lose someday.”

“To Jim? No way! He’s good… but he’ll never be as good as me. D’you see his clothes,” Michael asked with a chuckle.

Maria reached over and plucked a small stray sugar strand from Michael’s face then stuck it in her mouth and closed her lips slowly over her finger. “Mmmmmm. Too bad you didn’t lose. I could have helped you get some of that sugar off.”

Michael’s smile disappeared. “Well… you know… yeah… now that you mention it, I think I did get some on me.” Michael quickly dropped some strands of the cotton-candyish sugar dough on himself, hoping Maria wouldn’t notice…

“See… right here… and here… and…”

“Maybe we’d better go clean that off somewhere more… private,” Maria said.

Michael nodded and swallowed. “Yeah… yeah, I was thinking the same thing, too.”



**********


Michael knocked once on the observatory door then grinned. “Looks like we’re in luck! Alex and Isabel haven’t got here yet. It’s all ours.”

Maria smiled, as Michael quickly scrawled, “Observatory closed for temporary repairs” on a piece of paper and stuck it on the door. Then he picked Maria up and carried her inside, laying her down on the oversized Antarian sofa by the back wall. The observatory had long been a favorite “make-out” place for several of the couples, but especially for Alex and Isabel and for Michael and Maria, because the huge dome gave a feeling of oneness with the universe. From inside the observatory, one could watch the bright stars go by in the darkness of space with no visible roof overhead.

Michael laid himself down on the sofa beside Maria and kissed her, enjoying the moist, soft warmth of her lips on his and the soft feel of her hair as it caressed his face.

Maria looked up at the stars rushing by overhead and sighed.

“I’ve missed this place. You know, Michael, sometimes I wish no one had ever found those spheres. With them, we never get to go anywhere in the ship anymore. I really love this ship!”

“Yeah, me too…” Michael said, running his hand gently over Maria’s face and up into her hair. “It’s like the Love Boat of the cosmos or something… it’s a vacation just being onboard.”

Maria smiled and pressed her face against Michael’s hand, enjoying his gentle touch. “Yeah… I guess that’s it. It’s relaxing.” She kissed Michael again. “And it’s romantic.”

“Well… you’ve gotta have the perfect partner, of course,” Michael said with a grin.

“Of course,” Maria agreed, smiling. “That’s why it’s so perfect for us.”

Michael grinned and kissed Maria again.

“Now where were those strands of jaht roo sugar you got on you,” Maria asked playfully. “I’m feeling like some candy… and I’ve got a real sweet-tooth coming on. I’m afraid there might not be much left of you after I get through, Michael.”

“It’s a price I’m willing to pay,” Michael said breathlessly, “to keep you satisfied, Darling.”

Maria placed her lips over one of the strands of sugar dough that Michael had dropped on his clothes and ran her tongue in slow circles over it, removing the sugary substance; and Michael closed his eyes and ran his hands down Maria’s back, locating and releasing the most immediate impediment to his desires. Then he took the matter of Maria’s happiness into his own capable hands, as he caressed her body with kisses.



**********


Alex and Isabel arrived at the observatory to find a hand-scrawled note stuck on the door. Isabel pulled it off and read it.

“Oh, great!”

“Well, if it’s out of order, we can go somewhere else,” Alex said.

“It’s not out of order. That’s Michael’s writing. He’s in there with Maria.”

“Well, let’s go to the arboretum then… or the gardens,” Alex suggested. “Let Michael and Maria use the observatory for awhile.”

“Oh! You don’t understand, Alex.”

“What’s to understand, Iz? It’s a public place. Anybody can use it.”

“Yeah but… it’s our place, Alex… That’s always been our personal love retreat… Michael’s turning it into a… a… a Nookie nook!”

Alex laughed. “What’s that?”

“You know…” Isabel said… “He’s just in there for… a little nookie.”

“Yeah… so?”

“We come here to enjoy our love together, Alex. It’s totally different. If they’re gonna use it all the time, we might as well put a sign on the door that says, ‘Guerin’s Nookie Nook! Enter at your own risk!’”

Alex nodded. “Well, I’ll tell you what, Iz… There’s a deep, warm pond up in the gardens with a nice waterfall… and I think it has Alex and Isabel written all over it.”

Isabel smiled. “Yeah… Yeah! It does, doesn’t it!” Then her smile disappeared again.

“Wait a minute, that’s the pond Michael and Maria were swimming in… naked.”

“That was on the last trip, Iz… It was a long time ago. They changed the water since then.”

Isabel smiled again. “Yeah! Okay! Let’s go there then.” Isabel and Alex got back into the glass ascension chamber and headed for the gardens.




**********



Isabel stood on the rocks above the waterfall and dropped her skirt seductively behind her, watching Alex, as he watched her from below. Then, wearing nothing but the smile on her face, she dove over the falls into the pond.

The garden pond was at least half again as long as an Olympic swimming pool and easily twice as wide. It had a sandy bottom that tapered off naturally to a depth of about thirty feet near the falls. The falls themselves had been created by directing the flow of water over some large rocks from a height of around fifteen feet. Behind the falls, Michael had discovered a sandy nook, like a small cave, that provided privacy and shelter from prying eyes, in case anyone came in unexpectedly. Isabel and Alex, however, were unaware of this niche, and Michael had not mentioned it to anyone else, preferring to keep it as his and Maria’s little secret.

Isabel swam beneath the water to the rocks where Alex was sitting. One moment, Alex was relaxing with his feet dangling in the warm water… the next moment he was being pulled in with a hand around his ankle. Alex sputtered and made his way back to the surface.

“I still have my clothes on, Iz! Now they’re soaked.”

“I guess you’ll have to take ‘em off and let ‘em dry then,” Isabel said with a twinkle in her eye. She helped Alex strip out of his shirt, then his pants, tossing them onto the rocks where Alex had, until a moment ago, been sitting. Then she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. Still holding the kiss, Alex wrapped his arms around Isabel in turn, as they sank slowly together to the sandy bottom below.



**********


Meanwhile, on the ship’s bridge, Max and Liz were still “testing the warp drive” (just to be sure). Liz never knew why she opened her eyes at that particular moment… maybe she perceived a shadow… maybe it was a feeling she had… maybe it was merely coincidence. But what she saw was not what she ever expected to see. The room was filled with stars. Well… not real stars… Real stars would have been much too large to fit inside the room. But something was floating all around the room with them, rushing in through the walls from the front of the ship and out through the back.

Liz tried to get Max’s attention, which was a bit of a challenge, as his mind was running full speed on one track at the moment. Persistence paid off, though, in the end.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“Max, I’m seeing stars.”

Max smiled. “Yeah? Me, too.”

“No, Max, I mean like real stars… or something. Not real stars, but… there’s something in the air in here.”

“Did Jim bring some of that turkey onboard?”

“Get real, Max. Look! See for yourself!”

Max turned over and looked around the room. At first, he almost wasn’t sure where he was. The room seemed to be full of little bright stars flying by… and the walls seemed to be… dissolving.

Max jumped up quickly, his mind suddenly returning to full duty as the adrenaline began to pump.

“Call Varec up here, Liz… on the com. Something weird’s going on… This doesn’t look right. Varec never said anything about the ship disintegrating around us on this trip.”

For a moment, Liz stood there, eyes wide, watching the stars float around her; and to Max, for just a moment, it appeared that Liz was outside the ship, in the vacuum of space. But then Liz suddenly jumped and ran for the com.

“What the galaxies is happening, Liz? The ship is just disappearing! Liz?”

Max looked back. Liz was gone. So was that entire side of the ship where Liz had been. Max was staring into open space, as tiny starry lights rushed by him. It might have been beautiful… if he could have thought of beauty at this moment.

In the gardens, Isabel pushed away from the rocks at the side of the pool and swam back towards Alex under the water. For a moment, she had a feeling that the water was rushing by her, escaping to somewhere, and that she was being carried with it to wherever it was going. Looking through the haze of the water, Isabel would have sworn she saw Liz reaching for Max, then that she saw Jim Valenti, with a look on his face that strongly suggested that he was seeing something totally unexpected, too. As the stream continued to carry Isabel along, she thought she saw Michael and Maria in the observatory. But she couldn’t be sure, because the water distorted her vision. After almost a full minute, the stream began to subside, and Isabel swam to the surface. To her great relief, Alex was there on the rocks looking for her.

In the observatory, Maria opened her eyes to find Michael lying beside her, his eyes wide, looking like he was in shock.

“Michael? Michael! Snap out of it! Hey, I know I give mind-boggling love, lover boy, but wake up here!”

Michael shook his head and blinked his eyes several times.

“Michael, what’s the matter with you?”

Michael pointed upward, still in shock.

“I just saw Isabel swim by… naked.”

Maria’s mouth dropped open. “You were thinking about her while you were doing it with me!? OH! God, Michael! That is just so… Oh! That’s like… incest or something! For God’s sake, Michael, she’s almost your sister!”

Maria was whacking Michael, but he didn’t seem to be noticing.

“No, Maria! GEEZ! Get real, Maria! ISABEL? No! No way! No! I wasn’t, like, thinking about her. I saw her! She swam by right over us… and she was naked as a bab…”

“Oh!” Maria jumped up from the sofa and threw one of the pillows at Michael. “You can’t even make up a good story, Michael! If I was too much for you, you didn’t have to make something up to get out of it!”

Michael was shaking his head emphatically. “No, really, Maria! I love you! I didn’t want to stop. I just lost my concentration. If you’d seen what I saw, you would have, too. Believe me, Maria, I love you… just you… always.” Michael wrapped his arms around Maria. “You’re everything to me, Maria. I could never get tired of you.” Michael kissed Maria lovingly, and in spite of her misgivings, she found herself melting into his arms again.

“Dammit! Isabel! She must have put that image in my mind somehow… with some kind of dreamwalk or something!”

“Why would Isabel do that?”

“Because we got the observatory before they did maybe. I don’t know! I just saw her swimming over us, and… and… I lost it.”

Maria gave Michael a pouty look. “Well, I can help you find it again.”

Michael laid himself back down beside Maria. “Yeah… yeah… She’s gone now… Hell, maybe I did imagine it all. Am I going crazy, Maria?”

“My love has been known to do that to men,” Maria said with a pouty smile.

Michael smiled, too, knowing that Maria was teasing him. “Oh? And how many men would that be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t count anymore…”

Michael pounced on top of Maria. “Well, I’ll have to make sure you don’t forget ME then, huh? You won’t, you know!”

“Prove it,” Maria said, smiling again.



**********


The anomalies on the ship had by now subsided, and everything quickly returned to some semblance of normality. Max and Liz immediately consulted with Varec about what had happened, but for the most part, life on the new granolith returned to its usual pace. That evening, everyone gathered in the dining room for dinner as usual, and it was almost as though nothing had ever happened. Almost…

“Did anybody else experience anything… unusual about four hours ago,” Max asked. “Liz and I saw little stars all around us.”

Alex smiled knowingly. “What were you doing at the time, Max?”

“Don’t get ahead of me, Alex. It wasn’t like that.” Max looked over at Liz. “Well… maybe it was, but that wasn’t… I mean… there was something else going on. The walls seemed to dissolve and disappear all around us, and Liz looked like she was floating away in space.”

“Do you know what caused it,” Michael asked.

“We think we do… We’re not sure. Varec said it was the result of passing through a dimensional rift into a new dimension at an improper angle. He’s doing some recalculations.”

Varec nodded.

“Did, uh, did anybody else see anything… unusual…” Isabel asked cautiously.

“Like what?” Michael asked.

Isabel smiled. “Oh, nothing. If you didn’t see it, I guess there was nothing else to see.”

“I guess not,” Michael agreed. “Did you see anything, Jim?”

“Me? No, I didn’t see anything… unusual.”

Michael looked at Varec. Varec shook his head. “No… No, I didn’t see anything.”

Isabel breathed a sigh of relief and smiled then picked up her spoon and took a sip of her Grelligo soup.

“I’m curious, though,” Varec said to Isabel. “Are many earth girls born with a picture of a little rose right here?” Varec pointed at his rear.

Michael snickered. “Is that what it was? I thought it was a birth mark.”

“Naw, it was a rose,” Jim said. “a little, tiny tattoo… Couldn’t you tell?”

Isabel’s head sank slowly down onto the table. Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad. She could always kill everybody. And failing that… she could probably still eject herself from one of the air locks.



tbc


Coming up: A message from earth

The Four Faces of Rath



The Message

Chapter 62

LXII



Three days had passed since the unusual visual and physical disturbances that had shaken up the ship. After determining that the anomalies had been the result of the ship’s passing through a dimensional rift at an improper angle, Varec recalculated their trajectory and compensated for the differences that the new trajectory would make in their voyage. So far, there had been no new anomalies that were of any major consequence, but there had been several “unusual” smaller occurrences.

It might be unfair, really, to call them “unusual.” Traveling through dimensions was anything BUT “normal and usual” for Max and his fellow Antarian travelers, so everything about this trip could be deemed unusual… or nothing could be… No one could really be sure which.

Space itself was a good example. Though generally dark except for the light reflected from planetoids or given off by distant stars, space at the edge of a dimensional rift was often brilliant, exploding with lights and images that reminded the travelers of the Northern Lights seen on earth near the Arctic Circle. In fact, traveling through these “Northern Lights” of space often bordered on being a psychedelic experience. Varec had at first conjectured that the lights were the result of visual and brain disturbances caused by the magnetic and ionizing fields of the dimensional rifts themselves and did not actually exist at all; but after significant study on the effect, he had determined that the lights were indeed real.

Another “odd” phenomenon that they had discovered was something that Varec aptly named the “Speed-Trajectory Ratio to Size factor.” Only Varec -and Liz, once he explained it to her- actually seemed to understand it. Everyone else could see its effect, but the factors that caused it were simply beyond their comprehension. The STR-S factor, or “STARS factor,” as Max and Michael started calling it euphemistically, had an unusual and initially disconcerting effect. Altering the speed and/or trajectory of the ship, especially as they traveled through a dimensional rift, seemed to increase or decrease the actual physical size of the ship… and with it, of course, everyone in it. This had been hard to actually prove, since there was nothing to hold up beside the ship for size comparison, but Varec had confirmed it mathematically. The others had already noticed a difference in the relative look of space at different times. At one point, the nearby stars and planets would look normal… but with a slight alteration of the ship’s speed or trajectory, these same stars and planets could be made to appear either vastly smaller or vastly larger in comparison to their ship. As it was unlikely that the stars and planets were growing and shrinking, even the “non-scientific minds” onboard had to admit that the alternative was the only likely answer… as disconcerting as it might be.

The STR-S factor did have a practical application, though. Making the ship significantly larger resulted in the ship passing more quickly through a dimension. Conversely, a smaller ship took longer to pass through a dimension. Speed was, of course, a factor, but even the non-scientists onboard could see that there was an appreciable difference in how long it took them to pass through a dimension when they altered the speed-trajectory ratio.

Varec calculated that, at different speed-trajectory ratios already tested, the ship had at one time been as small as a kyrin - about the size of a dime - and the individuals on board had been the size of amoebas… and at another time, the ship had been as large as a planet, with everyone onboard standing over a hundred feet high… but since everything was relative, no one could tell if this was so or not. Small or large, no one felt any difference, having nothing to compare themselves to and no gravity except the ship’s artificial gravity pulling on them. They would have to take Varec and Liz’s word for it. One thing was certain, though… a ship the size of a kyrin took a lot longer to pass through a dimension than a ship the size of Jupiter, and this knowledge could be useful.

Varec had already begun to put together a chart that would plot the STR-S differential. If he was successful, they would know, by following the chart, what trajectory and speed to use to reduce their actual travel time or to make the ship larger or smaller. In fact, Michael was already thinking of this latter possibility as a potential advantage…

“You know, Max… this could be pretty cool, actually! Too bad it doesn’t work in regular space… only in dimensional space. Can you imagine, back when the Ghors attacked us, if we’d been able to make the ship suddenly the size of a small planet and we were like a hundred feet tall. No Ghor problem!”

Max grinned and nodded. “Yeah.”

“But if they were traveling at the same STR-S as we were, they’d be just as big as we were… relatively,” Liz reminded them.

“Well, yeah…” Michael said, thinking quickly, “but let’s say we were normal-sized and we were being attacked. We suddenly change our STARS factor, and Bingo! We’re as big as a planet before they know what happened and can change theirs. That would work… wouldn’t it?”

Liz shrugged and smiled. “Seems logical, Mr. Spock, sir.”

“Well, I think it would work,” Michael said. “Don’t you, Max?”

“I’d try it,” Max admitted. “It sounds reasonable. But who knows what’s reasonable out here when no one’s ever done it before. I guess we’ll only know for sure if it ever happens.”

“Yeah… yeah, it would work,” Michael said.

“Well, that STR-S thing would explain why I’m hungry again,” Alex mused. “I ate for an amoeba, and now I’m a human… or am I? Are we human-sized right now or what?”

Liz smiled. “It doesn’t work like that, Alex. “Whatever you ate would all be relative, too.”

“Well, I like my theory anyway,” Alex said. “And I’m getting hungry again.”

Liz smiled. “It’s the excitement of the voyage. You burn the calories faster, because your mind and body are all revved up.”

“Shrinking and expanding always does that to me,” Alex said with a wry grin.

“How do we know that we even are the size we think we are… I mean… ever,” Maria asked.

“What do you mean,” Alex asked.

“Well, maybe the universe and everything in it is expanding and contracting all the time and we expand and contract with it. If everything is relative, how would we even know?”

“That’s like the old question of if a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it did it really make a sound,” Alex said.

“Well did it?” Liz asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Of course it did,” Alex replied. “What difference does it make if anyone heard it or not? It fell, and it made sound waves in the air, didn’t it?”

Liz smiled. “Yeah, but what are sound waves? …just disturbances in the air. Is it really sound if nothing is there to interpret those waves and make something out of them?”

“Of course it’s sound,” Alex said. “What else would it be? That’s like saying that there’s no music on this CD.”

“There’s not,” Liz said. “If you want to get technical, there’s only a string of data… just a bunch of ones and zeros. They have to be interpreted by another machine and heard by you before they become music.”

Isabel took the CD from Alex and held it up to her ear. The CD began to play music.

“Okay,” Liz said… “Another machine… or Isabel Evans.”

Alex smiled. “Well… okay… but the data is there on the CD, and the sound waves produced by the falling tree are in the air just waiting to be interpreted… so it made sound. There!”

Liz nodded. “If you wish.”

“I hate to break up this interesting discussion,” Jim Valenti said, entering the room at that moment, but Max, you asked me to let you know if anything unusual happened in the control room.”

Max looked at Jim, suddenly forgetting about everything else. The words “unusual” and “happened” in the same sentence seemed to have that effect on him recently.

“What happened?”

“I think we’re intercepting some kind of message,” Jim said. “It seems to be a message anyway… I think… but it’s in some kind of code.”

Max, Michael, Liz, and Varec all rushed to the control room, followed closely by Jim and the others.

“I don’t hear anything,” Michael said.

“It’s not audible,” Jim replied. “Look at that area right between those two stars over there. What do you see?”

Max and Michael watched for a couple of minutes.

“It looks like a light is being sent out from one of those small stars… It could be a code… or it could just be a pulsing star.”

“Like a pulsar?” Michael asked.

Max nodded.

“No,” Varec said emphatically. “Jim’s right. It is a message.”

“How do you know,” Max asked.

“It’s an old code and an old trick. I haven’t seen it used since… since the pods were taken to earth. The protectors were taught it. It’s not an easy message to send.”

“What is it?” Max asked. “Can you tell what it says?”

Varec was already making notes in his head, as he watched the dim light pulse and flicker between the two stars.

“What it is is a rather sophisticated mind trick that was supposed to allow a protector of the king… and later a protector of the pods… to provide information to an Antarian ship in space even if he was unable to be near any communication device. Only a few protectors were ever able to master it, though, and the effort to teach it was so time-consuming and difficult that teaching it was abandoned after the pods were sent to earth. By producing energy waves in the brain, the protector could cause some stars that were close to each other to exchange small amounts of ion charges, and this created flickers of light in space between those stars. If the protector mastered the procedure well enough, he could control the pulses and use them to transmit a coded signal. The protector couldn’t control where the message went. It went out randomly, but wherever there was an Antarian ship in space, it was likely to spot the pulse somewhere among the stars… if it knew what to look for.

What it says is a bit difficult to read… but… it seems to be repeating one message over and over…

There is danger to the ones you wish to protect. Enemy forces amassing on Eluymer.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Could it be an old message… you know… something left over from years ago?”

Varec shook his head. “No. This type of message can only be seen while it is being sent. Someone is sending it right now… from earth.”

“In what dimension?”

Varec shook his head. “I… I’d say the one we’re going to… Dimension Y. But I don’t know how. I don’t think there were more than five protectors who ever learned to use this code. Only two or three ever really mastered it… And I never knew anyone who could make it work through another dimension.”

“How did you know the signals wouldn’t pass through to the other dimensions,” Max asked.

“That’s a good point,” Varec admitted. “We didn’t. Nobody had ever traveled interdimensionally, so I was just assuming that it was a skill that would have to be learned, but you are correct… It is possible that the signal travels interdimensionally on its own.”

“So someone is trying to tell us… I assume it’s us… that Liz and the others are in danger on earth, and the enemy is amassing,” Michael said. “Is that it? Isn’t that the gist of it?”

“I believe that’s what someone is saying,” Varec agreed.

“Then that someone is basically telling us to get our butts in gear and hurry up and get there… or it may be too late.”

“I believe so,” Varec said, nodding again.

“How far are we from them… time-wise?”

Varec looked at the time piece on his wrist and made some mental calculations.

“We can be there in four days… at the speed/trajectory ratio we prefer… the one that seems to produce the fewest anomalies.”

“Or…” Michael coaxed.

“Or…” Varec said… “We could be there by morning… twenty-seven hours from now… by altering our STR-S factor… but we may subject ourselves to unknown anomalies like the one we had three days ago.”

“And if we don’t,” Michael said, “Liz and the others may be dead when we get there, and the whole trip will have been for nothing.”

Varec nodded.

“Well,” Max sighed, “I think we know what has to be done. There’s one good thing about this message. We know Liz and the others are still alive.”

Michael smiled. “Yeah! Let’s make sure they stay that way, Max.”

Max nodded and looked at Varec.

“I guess it’s decided then,” Varec whispered. “We take the risks. I’ll plot a new STR-S factor for the ship right away.”

Max smiled. “Thank you. We only have to get through any anomalies that may pop up for one more day. We can do that, can’t we? Let’s save Liz and Alex.”



tbc


Coming up: The cavalry arrives to find that they are definitely not a moment too soon.

The Four Faces of Rath



RSVP
Subtitled: Just Dropped In
(To See What Condition Your Condition Was In)

Chapter 63

LXIII



The crew of the New Granolith tried to get some rest before their scheduled arrival on earth in Dimension Y, which had now been moved up to only twenty-seven hours away, but everyone was too wound up to sleep. Most of them did manage to grab several short “catnaps” along the way, but these tended to be broken up by what Varec had now termed “dimensional paranormalities.” Actually, nothing too serious had occurred since the “blushing rose” incident, but smaller occurrences seemed to be the norm rather than the paranormal, Varec’s name for the events notwithstanding. Colors often changed for no known reason, a fact that had kept Michael from eating his Antarian golden egg omelet at breakfast. The first bite had looked like a normal golden egg… but then the egg had slowly turned purple, and after that it had turned green. Michael tried to swallow a bite of the green eggs but couldn’t manage it and finally pushed them away with a comment about never having liked Dr. Seuss anyway.

The food was not the only thing that tended to change colors often, though… people did, too. At the moment, Max was a vivid blue, which Michael found somehow very amusing. Michael was himself a nice bright red. Isabel and Alex were both green, Maria was golden, and Liz was pearly white. Tess was a silvery color, while Jim Valenti was bronze. Varec, who was a sort of turquoise, was still trying to decide whether or not these changes were real or imagined. His theory of the moment was that they were akin to a psychedelic experience… not real but imagined… brought on by cosmic stresses on the mind. Despite his theory, though, every test he did seemed to indicate that the phenomenon was real, and he was slowly becoming convinced.

“Well, we won’t have to convince anyone that we’re aliens,” Michael joked, looking at the colorful faces around him.

Max nodded. “I imagine when we stop traveling through the rifts, though, all the colors will revert to normal… and we’ll be our old boring colors again.”

“Well, I’m not bored with my old color,” Michael said. “I mean… looking at you looking like that is just whacked, Max! You look like one of those guys that bang out that weird music on pipes and never talk… those blue guys in the TV commercials… what were they called?”

“Those blue guys, I guess,” Max said. “That’s what I called ‘em.”

“Blue Man Group,” Isabel corrected.

“Ah,” Michael said, nodding… “Yeah… okay. You know… I got to say, though, Max… Maria looks pretty good… golden… rose… baby blue… or even that iridescent abalone color she was earlier… All this changing colors is a little kinky… but it kind of spices things up… you know what I mean… in a way.”

Max grinned. “Maybe Jayyd would change her mama’s color for you now and then, Michael. I’m sure Jayyd wouldn’t mind.”

“Jayyd gets too creative, Max. Besides, I don’t want Maria thinking she’s not… you know… exciting like she is, ‘cause I’d love Maria any color.”

“awwww…” Maria said, walking up behind Michael at that moment and kissing him. “You can be so sensitive and sweet sometimes, Michael.”

Michael turned an even brighter red than he already was.

Maria chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’ll be our secret.”

“Max knows now,” Michael said, nodding toward Max.

“Oh, I think he probably figured it out a long time ago,” Maria giggled.

“Yeah,” Max said with a smile… “but I’ll keep your secret, Michael. Nobody else has to know.”

Michael sighed. “I know when I’ve been outed, Max. Besides, you’ve probably already told everyone else.”

Max smiled. “I didn’t have to. They know you’re a complicated man with a lot of levels.”

Michael raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Yeah… yeah, that’s right! That’s a good way to look at it. You’re right. Thanks, Max. Complicated… different levels… yeah, that’s a good description.”

“Well, I still like sensitive and sweet,” Maria teased.

“Just one of my many complicated levels, Maria,” Michael said.

“Whatever you want to call it,” Maria agreed, smiling.

“Hey guys,” Alex said, walking into the room at that moment… “Varec says earth is in sight… We should be there in about an hour tops.”

“Varec said an hour tops?” Max asked, not believing what he had heard.

“Well… actually, I think he said thirty nine minutes, twenty-seven and three quarter seconds, plus or minus three nanoseconds.”

“Now that sounds like Varec,” Max laughed. Michael nodded.

“Let’s go up to the bridge and take a look,” Max said, motioning the way to the others. “Oh, and by the way, Alex… that’s a really fetching mint green color you are this morning.”

Alex rolled his eyes then turned and walked toward the glass ascension chamber. “Get over it, Max. I’m taken.”

Max and Michael both laughed. “I just said it was fetching,” Max chuckled. “I didn’t say it was my color.”

“Uh uh,” Michael agreed. “Mine either.”

“Well, that’s good,” Alex said dryly. “Isabel will be glad to know that.”

“I’m sure she will,” Michael chuckled. “I didn’t know she was into little green aliens. You need a couple of little antennae on your head, though, Alex… to complete the look.”

“Yuk it up all you want,” Alex said, as they rode the ascension chamber up to the bridge. “You haven’t looked at yourself in the mirror this morning, I assume.”

“Maria likes me red,” Michael said.

“Good,” Alex said with a smile. ‘You won’t be lonely then… cause you’re not my color, Michael… or my type.”

Max snickered. “Touché. Point for Alex.”

“You either, Max. I’m not into blue either.”

“Oh well! I’ll get over it,” Max said, grinning.

Alex, Max, Michael, and Maria exited the ascension chamber and hurried to the bridge. Liz and Varec were already there waiting.

“There it is,” Varec said, pointing straight ahead. “Earth, Dimension Y. We’ll be there in eighteen and five-seventh seconds, plus or minus two nanoseconds… I can calculate it more accurately if you want when we get a little nearer.”

“No need,” Max said, grinning understandingly. “Your ‘rough estimate’ will be fine, Varec.”

Max stared out the window at earth, which looked about the size of a marble floating in the distance. As he stared, he began to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, without warning, Max jumped and dodged then swatted at something. Everyone looked at him, without a clue why he had done what he had just done.

“Didn’t you see it?” Max asked, flustered.

“See what,” Michael asked. “I just saw you doing some kind of weird rain dance.”

“It was a… a helicopter… It flew right in my face.”

“A real, like, big helicopter?” Michael asked, a bit incredulous.

“Yeah…” Max said, shaking his head with disbelief. “I mean, yeah… it was a real helicopter… It was weird.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Maria said.

“Me either,” Alex agreed.

Michael stared out the window for a several moments at the earth ahead, trying to see what Max might have seen. For a few moments, he saw only the small blue orb floating in the distance. Then suddenly, he jumped to the side, waving his hands wildly in front of his face. Maria looked at him curiously.

“Missiles,” Michael said. “Missiles were coming right at me! I waved my hands, and the wind from my hands blew them away from me. What the hell’s going on here, Varec?”

“Could be the travel through the rifts affecting your mind,” Varec said cautiously… “or… you could be seeing something that’s happening right now… down there on earth. Call it a remote… sensory… visual… perspective…”

“An RSVP,” Max said, amused.

“Works for me,” Michael nodded.

“You think they’re being attacked down there with missiles,” Maria asked Michael.

Michael shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Maria. It could be.”

“What can we do about it if they are,” Alex asked. “We’re still fifteen minutes away.”

“Send them an RSVP,” Max said.

“Huh?” Alex turned and looked at Max.

“Send them an RSVP,” Max repeated. “A Remote Sensory Visual Perspective. If we’re seeing them… maybe we can make them see something, too… make them see something we want them to see… get into their minds.”

“Like what,” Alex asked.

Max thought a minute. “Varec… you have the power to bring things to you… even over galaxies… Could you bring something to you through dimensions?”

“The jah-ee? The pawgor?” Varec asked, sensing where Max was going.

“Well, not actually,” Max said. “They would be easy targets for missiles if somebody is shooting missiles down there. I don’t want to put them in that kind of danger… But could you transfer an image of them down there to earth?”

Varec thought a moment. “I don’t know. I might could… if I contacted the real jah-ee and pawgor back on Antar first… through you. It would be like… accessing multiple imaging sources.”

“Sort of a conference call, you mean,” Max said.

Varec raised his eyebrows. “I guess so… The jah-ee or pawgor would actually see and react to the situation… and the people down there would see them… but they would really still be on Antar, so they wouldn’t actually be able to do anything to anyone on earth… or help down anyone there.”

“And no one on earth could do anything to them,” Max said, nodding. “But the people down there wouldn’t know that… right?”

“Right. I’m sure they would believe that they were in danger.”

“Then RSVP them,” Max said again. Send the jah-ee to attack the helicopter or the pawgor to attack anyone on the ground who’s threatening Liz and the others. Whoever’s shooting missiles down there, give them a jah-ee to distract them till we can get there.”

Varec closed his eyes and concentrated, placing one hand on Max’s arm to make a connection. Varec had the ability to bring the jah-ee… or it’s image… to him and transmit it to earth, but it was Max who had the mental connection with the jah-ee that would allow the jah-ee to know what was happening.

After what seemed like several long moments, Varec opened his eyes and nodded.

“The jah-ee understands.”

Max nodded. Varec closed his eyes again. After several moments, he reopened them.

“Danyy’s pawgor doesn’t hear us.”

“Only Danyy can speak with the pawgor,” Max said. “I never could.”

“I could still bring the pawgor’s image to earth,” Varec said. “It just wouldn’t understand what was going on.”

Max shook his head then thought about it again.

“The pawgor knows Jim. If Jim appeared to be in danger… or any of us for that matter, it might figure out what was going on. It’s a very smart animal.”

“It wouldn’t understand that it was only seeing a vision, though, Max. It would believe that the situations were real and the danger present.”

Max nodded. “It could confuse the pawgor… maybe we could use it as a last resort. At least, the pawgor couldn’t be harmed… It just wouldn’t know that.”

Varec nodded.

Nine minutes later, the New Granolith streaked invisibly into earth’s orbit, headed toward Roswell. With all its systems functioning and turned on, the ship was totally invisible to the eye and to radar, so no one noticed as the huge Antarian mother ship streaked across the Atlantic, then over Florida, and finally over the Gulf of Mexico, turning north toward New Mexico and Roswell. As the ship approached Roswell, Max scanned the town and countryside for any activity suggesting an ongoing attack of some kind. It didn’t take long to pinpoint the Mesaliko Reservation. Focusing on that area, the monitors began to pick up clear images of what was going on.

“There are fighter jets everywhere,” Max said. “We’d better stay invisible for a while. There’s a helicopter down below. And a lot of houses are on fire. It looks like they’re attacking the Mesalikos.”

“Liz and Alex must be there,” Michael said. “Why else would they attack the Reservation?”

Max nodded. Then he saw a missile streak from one of the fighter jets. It scored a direct hit on something that had just emerged above the clouds. Max gasped, as he got a good view of the craft that had been hit.

“Is that one of our ships?”

The smaller craft tumbled, out of control and in flames, toward the ground, breaking up as it fell.

“It is,” Varec confirmed. “It’s an old one. I don’t know who could be piloting it, though.”

“You think the army captured it and figured out how to fly it?”

“I doubt it. It has too many safeguards. It would only respond to a limited number of DNA profiles… probably only to one of the original crew.”

“Then someone of ours is in trouble,” Max said.

Varec nodded.

“Lock on to him,” Max said. “Put out the fire and bring him onboard.”

Michael rushed to lock on to the smaller ship and bring it into the New Granolith’s huge hangar. Held in the magnetic grasp of the Antarian mother ship, the smaller ship stopped tumbling, leveled off again, and began to rise, then the flames went out, smothered by a mist within the magnetic field that was lifting the smaller craft up.

Within moments, the smaller craft, which was actually almost two hundred feet across, was sitting inside the much larger New Granolith, and Michael was in the cargo hold, waiting for the pilot to come out.

The bottom of the smaller ship opened. Although the vessel had originally had an antigravity system that held it off the ground, that system, and most of the others on the smaller vessel, had been seriously damaged by the missile. Now the ship sat on the floor of the New Granolith’s cargo bay, leaning slightly to one side. The pilot had to bend over and squeeze himself out between the bottom of his craft and the floor.

The young man walked up to Michael, stopped, and smiled.

“I am Rahn… of the Ke’cje people of Antar. I’m glad that you have arrived. We need your help.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” Michael said. “Let’s get up to the the bridge, Rahn. Max will want to talk to you. I’m Michael… some know me as Rath.”

“I recognized you,” Rahn said, as he walked with Michael to the ascension chamber. “The situation is already critical. I’m afraid we must act quickly. Your friends – and mine – are locked inside one of the houses on the Reservation. I heard one of the special agents order the house to be blown up with a missile.”

As Max and Rahn stepped out of the ascension chamber, they were met by Max.

“This is Rahn. Rahn… Max,” Michael said, quickly dispensing with introductions. “Rahn says that we need to hurry, Max. Liz and Alex are locked in one of those houses on the Reservation, and a special agent has given the order for the house to be blown up with a missile.”

Without speaking, Max headed back to the bridge with Michael and Rahn right behind him.

“Remove the invisibility field,” Max said to Varec, as he walked onto the bridge. “I think it’s time they saw us. Maybe we can attract a little attention away from them down there and onto us.”

Varec passed his hand over two sensors, and the New Granolith suddenly became visible, casting a huge shadow over about three miles of land as it blocked out the sun.

Michael adjusted the New Granolith’s audio receptors to pick up the communications of the fighter jets. Right away, something came on line.

“Uh… This is Wingman One. It’s getting overcast up here. Come in someone… anyone… Doesn’t anyone hear me anymore? Damn! What is that? It’s affecting my signal… Too big to be anything but cloud cover, but…”

At the same time, another signal was being picked up from lower down, probably from another fighter jet.

“What’s going on up there, Wingman One? Where are you? Reply, Wingman One. We didn’t copy all of that last communication about the cloud cover. It’s supposed to be clear and sunny all day today…” There was a slight pause. “Okay… Guess the weather guys got it wrong again. We’re starting to see that cloud down here, too, now. Getting pretty dark all of a sudden.”

It appeared that the two pilots were no longer able to actually hear each other. However, the New Granolith’s audio picked up another communication from farther away…

“Cobra Nine checking in. Missiles are ready. Waiting for your orders, sir. Just say the word.”

A voice came back, “Missiles? Plural?”

“You said you wanted big, sir.”

“I did! I do!”

“Well big is what you’ll get, then, sir. Missiles one, three, four, and six are armed and ready to fly. Just say the word, and that house is going bye-bye… for good!”

“Fire, Cobra Nine! Fire! Just do it!”

“Roger that, Culpepper. Cobra Nine Out.”

Michael looked at Max, and both of them instantly knew what was happening. Max turned to Varec…

“Varec, we need the jah-ee… NOW!”

Varec had already begun to concentrate.

The Cobra pilot’s voice came back… “Firing One…” There was a distinct pause, as Cobra Nine hesitated, rubbed his eyes and shook his head, then looked out his windshield again.

“Uh… Cobra Nine here… Hold on a minute… There’s something… Uh… What the! HOLY…!”

The pilot jerked his stick back and to the right, taking his helicopter into a corkscrew loop for a moment. Then he straightened it out again…

“What’s happening, Cobra Nine,” Culpepper asked, disturbed that he had not yet seen the explosion he desired and curious about Cobra Nine’s unexplained aerobatics.

“Something almost flew right into me,” Cobra Nine said after a minute.

“You’re the only chopper in the area, Cobra Nine. And I don’t see any jets near you.”

“Negative.” Cobra Nine’s voice said, sounding strangely quaky.

“Well, what was it then?”

Cobra Nine decided to keep what he THOUGHT he had seen to himself… at least for now. In his experience, pilots who had reported unusual sightings had often been grounded and sent to the base psychologist for extensive testing. Most had come back saying that they hadn’t actually seen anything unusual after all and it had just been sunspots. Those who persisted in the belief that it had been anything else never flew again.

“Sunspots,” Cobra Nine said after a few moments. “It was just sunspots.”

“Sunspots?” Culpepper asked, somewhat doubtful. “The sun seems to have gone behind a big cloud, Cobra Nine.”

“Well, up here, there are sunspots, sir,” the pilot insisted.

“Never mind, Cobra Nine. Just blow that house up… NOW! Carry out orders!”

“Yes, sir!”

Cobra Nine circled around and headed back toward the home. Once he had lined up his target again, he flipped a switch and spoke into his helmet mike…

“Missile One is armed… Firing!” As Cobra Nine started to flip a second switch that would fire the first of the four missiles, the huge bird suddenly reappeared in front of him. Cobra Nine closed his eyes and opened them again. It was still there… and heading right at him. In a near panic, he took his helicopter over into a sharp dive to avoid colliding with the giant raptor, which had an almost unbelievable wingspan. Cobra Nine guessed it to be 65 feet from wingtip to wingtip. He was not off by much.

Leveling off after his hastily executed rollover and dive, Cobra Nine looked out his windshield, searching the sky in every direction for the impossible bird. Then he spotted it. Out of nowhere, it dived at his helicopter, its huge claws extended in his direction. Cobra Nine instantly knew that this giant, eagle-like raptor, with its giant talons, could easily tear his helicopter apart or grab and hold onto it… and it might even be able to carry it away. If he allowed this bird to get its talons on his helicopter, the outcome would clearly be devastating.

Already flying too low, Cobra Nine rolled over and tried to dive again, this time plowing his helicopter right into the ground. The already armed missile flew off, traveling along the ground toward the house. Clipping a tree along the way, the missile went into a spin then headed back toward the helicopter. The pilot of Cobra One, seeing the missile coming, bailed out of his downed helicopter and ran, trying to put as much distance between himself and the helicopter as he could. Ultimately, the missile missed the helicopter, streaked through the underbrush and trees and ended up in the nearby river. Moments later, there was a tremendous explosion beneath the water of the river. When the dust had finally cleared and the rain of fish, pieces of fish, and river water had all ceased to fall, the Cobra lay on its side, all its rotors bent or broken and its body severely damaged. It would not likely be taking off again any time soon, if ever.

Culpepper had watched Cobra Nine dive and level off then dive again and crash in a cloud of dust. He wanted to curse the pilot of the downed helicopter, but at the moment he was too stunned. Culpepper had not seen the jah-ee. Only the pilot of Cobra One had been able to see the huge Antarian bird. But the crash absolutely baffled Culpepper. The pilot of Cobra One was one of the best they had… and yet… he was flying as though he had lost his mind. It was inexplicable and utterly baffling.

Culpepper would soon understand, though.

Varec had expanded the range of the RSVP. Now anyone who was in the area would see the jah-ee. Maybe it was a flicker perceived from the corner of his eye… Maybe it was just a feeling… but something made Culpepper look up again at that moment. He saw the huge bird descending toward him, its talons extended, and the blood all rushed out of his face.



tbc


Coming Up: Max and Michael from Antar join the battle to help their younger counterparts on earth.

The Four Faces of Rath



Into The Fray

Chapter 64

LXIV



Culpepper saw the huge bird descending toward him, its talons extended, and the blood all rushed out of his face. He turned to run but slipped and began to roll down the hill. He might have rolled all the way to the bottom had it not been for a large prickly bush about half way down. Rolling into the bush, Culpepper rushed to crawl under it as far as he could get, scarcely paying attention to the thorns. Feeling somewhat safer in his hiding place, Culpepper scanned the sky again for the huge bird of prey, his heart still beating wildly. The bird seemed to have disappeared. Culpepper looked for his two-way radio/walkie-talkie but realized that he had dropped it during his roll down the hill. He would have to come out from under the bush to retrieve it, and that thought made him shiver involuntarily. After several minutes without seeing the huge eagle-like bird again, however, Culpepper cautiously extracted himself from beneath the bush and looked around. Still seeing no bird, he ran quickly up the hill to where his two-way radio lay and hastily made a call…

“Culpepper here… Come in Cobra Leader.”

“This is Cobra Leader. What’s happening there, Culpepper? Did Cobra Nine give you the fireworks you wanted?”

“Negative,” Culpepper said simply, not expounding on the reasons or causes.

“Negative?”

“That’s what I said… Negative! I need another pilot.”

There was a short pause. “Where is Cobra Nine?”

“Crashed.”

There was another pause. “Do you need emergency vehicles?”

“Negative,” Culpepper responded again. “Cobra Nine is okay…” (“For now,” he mumbled under his breath, blaming Cobra Nine for not disposing of the huge bird before it had a chance to attack him.)

“All right,” Cobra Leader replied hesitantly. “I’ll send Cobra Two. ETA in seven minutes.”

“Roger that,” Culpepper responded. “Put a rush on it.”

Culpepper breathed a deep sigh and scanned the sky again, looking for the jah-ee… and he realized that he was still shivering.

On the Reservation below, meanwhile, Max, Michael, Liz, Maria, Alex, and the others were all tied up and awaiting what was intended to be, in effect, their execution. After overwhelming them with the Cobra helicopters and then subduing them with gas, Agent Culpepper had ordered them all bound and locked inside one of the empty houses. He had then ordered the house to be blown up with a missile. That “job” had fallen to Cobra Nine, who had no idea that the house was occupied… though he never asked either. Cobra Nine was just happy to give Culpepper a bright fireworks show, and he planned to fire a total of four missiles into the house to accomplish that goal… but an unexpected encounter with the jah-ee had ended his plans early, and Culpepper had called Cobra Two to finish the job.

Inside the house, meanwhile, Max and Michael were making the most of their brief reprieve. Michael had managed to chew through the fiberglass tape that bound his hands and had helped Max to finish getting the tape off of his hands. Then the two of them had untied themselves and the others.

“What are we going to do,” Liz asked, hugging Max. “If we try to run, they’ll see us… and they’ll shoot us on sight… especially with you having to carry me.”

Max swallowed. He knew that Liz was right. Free of the ropes or not, there was nowhere they could run to. Yet as long as they were in that house, they were condemned prisoners… merely waiting for their execution to take place.

“We need to make a run for it,” Michael said, clearly preferring to die in action than to sit there and perish without a fight. “We can hold some of them off for a while.”

“But we’ll still all die, right?” Alex asked.

Michael nodded solemnly.

“Just checking,” Alex said.

As the group debated their options, few as they seemed to be at the moment, high above them, another group was also debating… inside the Antarian mothership, the New Granolith.

“Have you located them yet,” Michael asked Varec.

Varec shook his head. “There’s too much going on down there… and a lot of smoke over the reservation. But I’m concentrating on the area that was in line with the flight of that last flying machine with the spinners on top… the one you call a helicopter.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Max agreed. “We know it was on its way there to blow up the house. Where was the pilot when he said he was ‘firing,’?”

“He was just outside the reservation. His weapons would have followed this course…” Varec traced a marker over an improvised map of the reservation then drew a circle around five or six houses. “It would have most likely impacted in this area…”

“Can we pinpoint it any closer,” Max asked.

“I’m trying,” Varec replied. “The missile had a variable range. It can’t be determined which house it would have struck for certain… but I may be able to narrow it down to… three houses.”

“Do it,” Max said.

“Max!” Liz cried out suddenly, as she watched the monitors. “There’s another helicopter coming!”

Max looked at the monitor.

“Damn. He’ll be in range in… two minutes. We don’t have much time.”

“One minute, twenty-one and one quarter seconds,” Varec corrected.

“That’s what I said,” Max mumbled… “not enough time.”

“Look!” Michael yelled, pointing at the monitor. “Someone’s going into one of the houses.”

Varec quickly compared his improvised map to the monitor. “That would be this one.”

“Why would anyone be going INTO a house that was about to be blown up,” Maria asked.

“Maybe it’s one of OUR group down there… trying to save the others,” Isabel suggested. “I don’t know anyone else who would be putting their life in danger going into a house about to be blown up, do you?”

“That’s the house,” Max agreed. “Gotta be! Concentrate on that house! Get ready to bring anyone who’s down there onboard immediately.”

Varec rushed to prepare the New Granolith’s systems for quick teleportation of carbon life forms.

“Someone’s coming out!” Liz said. “Look!”

Everyone looked at the monitor. Three people had emerged from the house and were helping the others to get out. But they would not have enough time…

“MISSILE!” Alex shouted, pointing at the screen. Max and Michael both saw it at the same time.

“Transport! Now!” Max yelled. “Get them out!”

Varec activated the transporter systems just as a bright light engulfed the house. Then the house vanished from the monitor. On the bridge of the New Granolith, nothing could be heard but the heavy breathing of those watching the monitor… for what seemed like an eternity.

“Did we get them?” Max asked after several moments, somehow finding his voice again, though it was still shaky.

Varec shook his head.

Maria closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks. Michael held her and wiped his own eyes.

“We came so far… so far for it to end like this,” Maria cried. “So far… and so close. It’s not fair.”

“Reality isn’t always fair,” Varec said softly. “We try to make it fair. That’s what living is about.”

“Well…” Michael said, rubbing his reddened eyes again. “I don’t know about the rest of you… but I’m going to make someone down there pay. I don’t feel very forgiving at the moment.”

“What are you going to do,” Varec asked. “You can’t just destroy everything down there. There are innocent people down there, too.”

Michael turned around and headed to the ascension chamber. The chamber reopened in the cargo bay, and Michael got out, heading for the room that housed his special bike… the one Varec and his scientist friends had made for him years before. On his way there, Michael noticed that the bottom bay doors had only partially closed after bringing Rahn’s ship onboard… and he noticed something else…

“The lower beam never deactivated.”

Michael started to deactivate the beam, but as he reached for it, he noticed something through the partially open bay doors. It looked like a fighter jet. It must have been caught in the beam. Instead of switching off the beam, Michael opened the bay doors all the way… and the fighter jet was drawn into the hangar. Then Michael closed the doors. The jet’s engines were already dead. They had probably run out of fuel long before. A helmeted individual sat in the pilot seat, staring blankly at Michael below.

“You’ll be the first,” Michael mouthed to the pilot. “Get out!”

The pilot couldn’t hear Michael; and in truth, he couldn’t see him very well either. He had been spinning around and around in his plane, caught in the attractor beam, for over an hour. Trying to get out of the plane, he tripped and fell on his face on the floor. For a time, he just lay there and moaned. Michael walked up to the pilot and turned him over with his foot so that he would be facing up and he could see Michael’s face… and so that Michael could see the pilot’s face.

“What are you moaning about? You’re punishment hasn’t even begun yet.”

“Dizzy,” the pilot mumbled, moaning again and trying not to throw up. Not totally successful, he pulled his helmet off quickly to avoid choking.

“Are you… are you… going to kill me?”

“I’m strongly considering it,” Michael replied honestly. “You killed my friends.”

“The ones in the flying saucer?”

“No. The others. We saved Rahn and his flying saucer. You should have been lucky enough for the others to have been saved, too. They weren’t.”

“What others?”

“The ones on the Reservation. The ones you and your squadron were sent to kill.”

“I was just sent to chase a flying saucer,” the pilot said feebly… “A stolen flying saucer… from Area 51.”

“Who stole it from whom,” Michael asked.

The pilot was silent for several moments.

“I see your point. But it was Army property. I’m required to go after it.”

“Are you required to kill innocent civilians?”

“I didn’t kill any innocent civilians.”

“What about all those houses on the Reservation? You didn’t kill any Mesalikos?”

“I… I didn’t do that. The tanks… and the Cobras did it.”

“But if you had got the orders to do it, you would have done it.”

The pilot didn’t respond.

“Why shouldn’t I kill you right now… right here,” Michael asked, holding up his palm and allowing it to glow brightly in a clear demonstration of the threat he posed to the pilot.

“It was national security,” the pilot said. “Don’t you have security issues where you come from? Who’s in charge of security on your… on your… where you come from?”

Michael lowered his hand slowly, and his palm stopped glowing.

“I don’t kill innocent civilians or people who have done nothing wrong except for being born who they are.”

“Lucky you,” the pilot said. “You must know who is a threat and who is not.”

“I determine that first,” Michael replied.

“Like you did with me?” the pilot asked.

“I haven’t killed you yet,” Michael said. “And you may be a threat.”

“But do you know that I am?”

“I know you have the capability to be.”

“Ah! The capability… Yes… And would aliens have that ‘capability?’”

“Not necessarily.”

“Your hand looked like it had that capability.”

Michael looked at his hand then nodded solemnly. “Don’t ever doubt it. But I haven’t used it… yet.”

“You were going to.”

“I haven’t decided for sure that I’m not still going to,” Michael said.

“See? You do have security issues. And your answer to them is not so totally different than ours.”

“Yes it is,” Michael said. “You’re still alive.”

“For the moment,” the pilot said.

“Yeah… for the moment,” Michael agreed. Michael placed his hand over a sensor on the wall…

“Max!”

A voice came back over the intercom. “Is that you, Michael?”

“Yeah. I’m sending you a prisoner.”

“A prisoner?”

“Yeah. He’s coming up in the chamber. Have someone waiting for him. I’ll explain later.”

Michael motioned toward the ascension chamber, and the pilot slowly got back on his feet and walked into the chamber.

“We’ll finish this later,” Michael said, closing the door and sending the chamber up.

As the bay doors at the bottom of the New Granolith reopened, a very special bike dropped out. It had wheels, but it also had an oddly aerodynamic look. One moment it was there, freefalling through the air… the next, it had disappeared in a blaze of light as though the sky had just opened up and swallowed it though a portal. Michael was on his way to settle a debt.



**********


On the Reservation below, fifteen people stood silently…

“Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we… are we still…” Liz stammered. “I can’t see you.”

“I’ve still got you in my arms, Liz.”

“I know. But… what just happened to us?”

“I don’t know.”



tbc


Coming up: The Antarian mothership drops in for a closer look –much closer- and shakes things up in Roswell, as Michael seeks those who are responsible for the blast that he believes killed their counterparts. And “not-so-old friends” meet again.

The Four Faces Of Rath

Author’s note: This next chapter was revised and edited from Chapters 28 (“Follow The Phoenix”) and 29 (“Michael Times Two & Other Miracles”) of “The Night The Dreams Died.” At this point in the saga, the two different casts, one from Antar and one from earth, are coming together, and their stories will be temporarily intertwined, but only for the next two chapters.

Michael & The Amazing Bike

Chapter 65

LXV



Unknown to Michael or to anyone else on the Antarian mothership at that time, the fifteen people who had been in the house that had just been blown up had not died. However, as smoke and flames rose all around them, they stood silently, wondering themselves whether or not they were still alive.

“Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we… are we still…” Liz stammered. “I can’t see you.”

“I’ve still got you in my arms, Liz.”

“I know. But… what just happened to us?”

“I don’t know.”

Max looked around. He could see the bombed out, fiery remains of the house. He could see the flames. But he couldn’t see any of the other members of their group.

“Michael! Are you there?”

“I’m right here, Max. I’ve got Maria. She’s still with me.”

Max called out the name of each of the remaining twelve people who had been with them, making sure that everyone was present and accounted for.

“We need to figure out what’s going on here and where we’re going. Angie Lee?”

“I’m here, Michael.”

“I’m assuming you’re still the reason we can’t see each other.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay… and no one else can see us either?”

“Right.”

“How did we just survive that… you know… thing… just now? Did you do something?”

Angie Lee looked at the scene around her. It looked more like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust than anything she recognized.

“I didn’t do anything… except cover us with a mind warp shield to keep anyone from seeing us.”

“Could your mind warp shield have protected us?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have expected it to.”

“What was that bright light right before the explosions,” Diane Casey asked. “I saw a bright light.”

“Yeah, she’s right,” Alex agreed. “I saw it, too. I thought it was part of the explosion, but since she mentioned it, I do remember seeing a bright light right before the explosions.”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with my mind warp,” Angie Lee said. “It was like something else… maybe it’s what protected us.”

“Then let’s take advantage of it and get out of here,” Michael said. “I don’t care what it was… a mind warp or divine intervention… I’ll take it! Max and I’ll lead. The rest of you… just hold on till we get there… wherever there is.”

The group walked away from the now-destroyed home… occasionally passing a still-standing home then more that had been destroyed. The Mesaliko Reservation, it seemed, no longer existed… certainly not as the place of quaint and peaceful little homes that it had once been. It was now a charred and destroyed battleground. Michael wondered how in the name of all that was holy the perpetrators of this desecration would explain this to the country… to the people… to their superiors… TO THE PRESIDENT! Did even the president know about it? Michael wondered. How high did this go? Would it even matter? If no one was left to testify against the perpetrators of this massacre… they could make up any lies that seemed convenient to them… and they would undoubtedly be exonerated of any and all wrongdoing. Michael steeled his resolve. He was determined that he would survive to tell the world what had happened here… even if it killed him.

“Hey, Max, listen… Do you hear something,” Michael asked.

Max listened. “Sounds like a car coming.”

Max led the group off the road and onto a grassy shoulder. Then they stopped and watched.

“Everyone stay quiet,” Max cautioned. “They can’t see us, so there’s no need to panic. Just stay still and be quiet till they’re past.”

The group watched in silence as a Humvee approached. It was going much slower than they would have expected, barely more than walking speed. It slowed more… then it stopped. Judge Lewis jumped out and looked at the ground excitedly.

“See! I told you those were shoe prints! And I told you they were new! They go off into the grass right here.”

Culpepper got out of the Humvee and looked closely at the slight traces of shoe prints on the hard dirt road. They weren’t very obvious. It might even have been debatable whether or not they were really shoe prints at all. But they did seem to turn off into the grass in this area.

“What’s your point, Judge? You think there are more aliens?”

“Maybe…” Judge Lewis said skeptically… “But I’m more inclined to think it’s the ones we already know.”

Culpepper laughed. “Only if they’re ghosts! I assure you that’s the only way they’re ever coming back, Judge!”

“Laugh if you want, Culpepper. I know these kids better than you do. I know enough not to believe anything before I see bodies.”

“There won’t be any bodies to see, Judge. They’re dead! They were burned up! Take my word for it. You don’t get hit with four hellfire missiles and just walk away! Maybe you’re seeing ghosts. Corporal, get the Judge the number for Ghostbusters. Maybe he should call them.”

The driver and Culpepper both enjoyed the joke, but Judge Lewis wasn’t paying any attention. He stepped onto the grass and looked around. Max and all those with him stood totally still, not ten feet away from Judge Lewis. If they ran, he would see the movement in the grass… but if they stayed and he came any closer he might actually find them. For a moment, Max was unsure. Maybe Judge Lewis would not venture too far from the road.

Judge Lewis stepped forward, taking several more steps into the grass. Somehow Isabel managed to stand totally still, though Judge Lewis was now standing right in her face. She could even smell his breath. She closed her eyes momentarily and hoped she wouldn’t sneeze.

As fate or bad luck would have it, Judge Lewis decided to take one more step, and Isabel was forced to back up to keep him from running into her. As she stepped back, Judge Lewis’ eyes grew large, and he pointed at the grass…

“They’re here! They’re here! I saw the grass move!”

He turned around quickly to look for Culpepper, but instead of Culpepper, he saw something he had not expected to see… Amy… standing between him and Culpepper. It took Judge Lewis a mere split second to notice that Amy’s feet appeared to be floating just above the ground. Momentarily shocked, Judge Lewis’ first impulse was to scream at Culpepper and the Corporal who was driving the Humvee to shoot her… and the Corporal, who was even more shocked than the judge by what he was seeing, did, without hesitation.

It had no effect. Either Amy was capable of taking a bullet in the chest now and not even flinching or she really was… a ghost.

For a moment, Judge Lewis seemed to turn pale. Then he looked at Culpepper again. Culpepper was still staring at Amy’s feet, which weren’t touching the ground. Judge Lewis turned back around and came face to face with Liz standing behind him. Her feet, too, seemed to be floating just above the ground. Whirling around, he saw Max and Michael… then the others… all staring… silently… accusingly… at the three men… all with their feet floating just above the ground.

Culpepper stood paralyzed as though in a trance, and no words seemed to come out of his mouth. The excitable Corporal, however, decided to empty his pistol into the apparitions… with predictable results… no effect.

Judge Lewis turned around to face Amy… then turned back to face the others. The more he looked at the “ghosts,” the more he began to think. He waved his hand at Amy, but it went right through her. Culpepper almost fainted, and the Corporal gasped loudly, turning even paler than he had been before.

“No… No… This isn’t right,” Judge Lewis said, swiping at the apparition again. “This isn’t right I tell you! Ghosts don’t leave footprints. Ghosts don’t make the grass lay down under their feet. Suddenly and without warning, Judge Lewis reached out in the direction of the place where the grass had moved before and made contact with something. He held on tight. It was an arm.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Maria cried out, as Judge Lewis twisted her arm. “Let go!”

“Not on your life,” Judge Lewis growled back. “You’re gonna be my ticket.”

“She said let her go,” a new voice said behind the judge. Judge Lewis whirled back around to look. It was Jim Valenti who had spoken… and beside him was Amy… again.

“Oh! So the ‘ghosts’ can talk!” Judge Lewis sneered, looking over at Culpepper as though expecting an apology from the agent to be forthcoming, and in the process, twisting Maria’s arm even further. That was a mistake. The moment he turned his eyes away, Amy leveled a crashing fist on his head that sent the judge sprawling to the ground. By now, Angie Lee had dropped the invisibility shield… as well as the special effects. The fake ghosts had all disappeared, and the real people all became visible again.

Culpepper started to go for his gun, but Jim got there quicker. The Corporal got to his own gun and tried to fire it, but he had already emptied his clip on the fake ghosts that Angie Lee had conjured up. With Culpepper’s gun now in Jim’s hand, the two men could do nothing but watch.

Judge Lewis had lost his grip on Maria’s arm as soon as Amy’s fist had crashed down on his head sending him sprawling to the ground. Now she was on top of him, and everything that had been pent up inside her finally came flowing out like the waters behind a burst dam. If Judge Lewis had actually been the BIG DOG that he always claimed to be, his fur would have been flying right now in all directions. What actually was flying was pieces of his clothes… and possibly skin. Since Amy had the judge down on the ground behind the Humvee, Culpepper and the corporal could not actually see what was happening to the him anymore, but his shrill, terrified howls and the rapidly flying pieces of cloth -and what appeared to be skin- made them wince more than once.

“Shouldn’t you lend some help there?” Culpepper asked Jim pointedly.”

“She doesn’t look to me like she needs it,” Jim replied matter-of-factly.

“I meant HIM, Culpepper barked with a tone of exasperation. “You are the sheriff!”

“NOW you remember that,” Jim said. “Well, you must also know then that I have no authority on the Reservation. I’m not the sheriff here. Gray Hawk’s people have their own laws.”

“Well, then, shouldn’t YOU stop her,” Culpepper barked at Gray Hawk.

“I will do what I can,” Gray Hawk said slowly. “I will have to convene a Council first, of course.” Gray Hawk looked around at the burned out homes and sighed dramatically… “There do not appear to be enough Mesaliko present now on the reservation for a Council. When there are, I will bring this matter up… if it is important at that time.”

Culpepper winced again.

A couple of minutes after it had started, another Humvee approached the group. In it were several soldiers armed with AK-47’s, a lieutenant, and a higher ranking officer, the second-in-command to General Hawkins. The higher ranking officer looked at what was happening, as the Humvee came to a stop, then he stepped out of the vehicle. Jim still had Culpepper’s pistol in his hand, aimed at Culpepper and the Corporal, but he knew it would be no match for four soldiers with AK-47’s. He waited to see what would happen, but he didn’t lower the gun in his hand.

“What’s going on here, Barker,” the higher-ranking officer asked, calling Culpepper by his real name.

“Well, if you’d just open your eyes and look,” Culpepper snapped back testily, with frustration and more than a little bit of fear obvious in his voice, “we’re being attacked by our prisoners. Now that you’re here, I’m sure you’ll want to do something about it other than just WATCH!”

The General’s second-in-command seemed to smile slightly. “You seem to have a problem, Barker.”

“Are you just gonna talk about it or are you gonna do something,” Culpepper snapped gruffly.

“I’m thinking,” the officer answered. Culpepper’s mouth seemed to drop open.

The officer motioned toward the soldiers in the Humvee, and they pointed their rifles at Jim, Max, and the others.

“Give me the gun,” the officer said to Jim. Jim hesitated… then handed the officer the pistol.

“This looks like your gun, Barker.”

“It IS my gun, Edmonds! You KNOW it’s mine! Give it back to me.”

“Do you let all your prisoners hold your gun, Barker… or do they have to ask nicely?”

“Just give me my gun, Edmonds… or I’ll have the General relieve you of command for insubordination.”

“Insubordination… to you, Barker?” The General’s second-in-command raised his eyebrows. “You’re just a special agent. You’re not even an officer!”

“With special connections,” Culpepper reminded him.

“Maybe not anymore… We’ll see,” the officer said matter-of-factly. Then he motioned to Jim and the others.

“All of you… down on the ground… hands behind your backs.” He looked at one of the soldiers holding an AK-47. “Do we have enough handcuffs?”

“If we don’t, there’s some rope in the back,” the soldier said.

The officer nodded. “Handcuff ‘em.” Then he handed Culpepper back his gun.

Culpepper promptly aimed it at Angie Lee on the ground. The moment he did, Gray Hawk hit him from the side, sending him reeling into one of the soldiers. Culpepper hadn’t even seen Gray Hawk get up. He simply seemed to rise off the ground and strike all in one swift motion. A second soldier hit Gray Hawk on the head with the butt of his gun, and Gray Hawk went down, momentarily addled but not unconscious. The soldier hurried to get the handcuffs on him before he could recover enough to fight again.

Culpepper walked back over to Angie Lee and pointed the gun at her again. “I killed you once… or I thought I did. Maybe the second time will be a charm.”

The General’s second-in-command grabbed Culpepper’s hand and pushed it away.

“What do you think you’re doing, Barker?”

“She’s dangerous, Edmonds! She’ll have you seeing things that aren’t there when you don’t expect it.”

“That’s my problem, Barker… and the General’s. He may want to find out what makes her tick… if what you say is true.”

“If? What do you mean, IF, Edmonds? Of course it’s true. You’ll live to regret it if you don’t kill her now.”

“And you WON’T live to regret it if you DO kill her now against my orders, Culpepper,” Edmonds threatened. Culpepper grudgingly lowered his gun.

“What do we do about this one…” the soldier asked, motioning toward Amy, who had still not been pulled off of the pitifully howling, battered, and now mostly naked Judge Lewis. Out of sight as they were behind the first Humvee, and with Judge Lewis howling continuously like a tomcat being pulled through a knothole by its tail, Amy hadn’t even been aware of the arrival of the additional soldiers.

“Handcuff her, too.”

The soldiers looked at each other, silently wondering which one was going to do it.

“What about him,” the soldier asked, motioning toward the judge.

“Take him to the base medic. He looks like he’s gonna need it.”

The soldiers carefully handcuffed Amy, who used her last free arm movement to remove most of what was left of Judge Lewis’ hair from his left armpit.

“All right… There are a couple more Humvees on the way,” the officer said. “When they get here, you guys are getting in and we’re all going back to the base.”

When the other vehicles arrived, the fifteen handcuffed prisoners and Judge Lewis were stuffed into five Humvees, including the one Culpepper and the judge had arrived in originally. Then Culpepper’s driver was ordered by the General’s second-in-command, against Culpepper’s wishes, to follow the convoy and return to the base with the prisoners in his vehicle. Still fuming, Culpepper, who had to stay behind, dropped his objections for the moment, but he never planned to allow any of the prisoners to return to the base… even knowing that they would “disappear” once they got there. Culpepper didn’t want these prisoners to merely “disappear.” “Disappeared” prisoners could talk… and sometimes they escaped, as he had seen some of these do once already. He wanted them dead… and he had an idea how that might still be accomplished. Unfortunately, it might mean sacrificing “a few” soldiers… and the General’s second-in-command. Culpepper smiled.

The Humvees drove off through the reservation, heading over the hills rather than out the official entrance, and as they drove away, Culpepper made a two-way radio call…

“Cobra Leader, this is Culpepper. Come in.”

“Cobra Leader here.”

“There’s a convoy of five Humvees leaving the Reservation… It’s heading over the hills from the Reservation bearing south-southeast. The vehicles were commandeered by the terrorists that were holed up on the reservation. They’ve killed the drivers. The intended target of the terrorists is Area 51. They intend to use our official vehicles to gain entrance and sabotage sensitive areas of national security. I’ve been ordered to stop this convoy before it reaches the base…”

“They’ll never get there,” Cobra Leader replied resolutely. “Trust me.”

“The whole nation is counting on you, Cobra Leader. Don’t fail us! Culpepper out.”

Culpepper pressed the button, turning off his two-way radio. Then he looked at the Humvees disappearing in the distance over the hill… and he smiled. Three minutes later, as the Humvees headed out across the desert, the General’s second-in-command spotted something far ahead of the convoy but approaching fast.

“What do you make those out to be,” the officer asked the driver.

“I don’t know, sir. I believe they’re helicopters… looks like maybe some of our Cobras.”

“Why would more Cobras be coming out here now?” the officer asked, more to himself than to the driver, who obviously wouldn’t know.

“I don’t know, sir… but they’re headed directly towards us.”

“Yes… they are, aren’t they,” the General’s second-in-command said slowly, beginning to have a bad feeling, as he started to put the pieces together. “Driver, stop the vehicle! Get out! Everybody get out! NOW!”

No one in the Humvees had time to react to the officer’s order. As they started to move, the air itself seemed to open up in front of them between the Humvees and the approaching helicopters. There was a tremendous BOOM, blowing out all the windows in the Humvees, as something shot out of a rift and the rift closed back up again. The object headed straight for the convoy. It looked like… but the officer’s mind refused to believe it… a rider on a motorbike… coming right out of a hole in the sky.

Michael touched down on the ground in a puff of smoke and flying grass, and within mere seconds, he had closed the gap and pulled up beside the convoy. Everyone could see now that it was a motorbike… but… what kind of motorbike comes out of the sky… or makes a sonic boom? Certainly nothing that anyone present had ever seen. It was sleek and aerodynamic, and though it lacked wings, it almost looked like it could fly… in fact, apparently, it just had.

The mysterious helmeted rider, dressed in a sleek black fabric that might have been some kind of leather, dismounted and looked at the Humvees. Since most of the soldiers had dropped their weapons when the boom had thrown them out of their vehicles, the newcomer seemed to enjoy a certain advantage at the moment. Apparently just realizing this, several of the soldiers scrambled for their weapons, and as they did, the newcomer started to raise one hand. The soldiers hesitated… Was he surrendering?

“OH! OW! DAMN!”

The soldiers began dropping their guns like hot potatoes. The barrels of the guns started to melt and closed up like straws that had had the air suddenly sucked out of them. Then the stranger’s hand began to glow brighter and brighter. Sensing immediate danger, the soldiers nearest to the closest Humvee scattered, putting distance between themselves and the vehicle’s gas tanks, but the stranger did not target the vehicle. Instead, he released a blast from the palm of his hand that left a ten-foot-wide, five-foot-deep crater in front of the scattering soldiers. It appeared to have been done as a sign… some kind of demonstration of his powers… a warning that he was not to be trifled with or challenged. It worked.

After surveying the scene, the rider calmly removed his helmet. As he did, two gasps came from inside the second Humvee.

“It’s you,” Max said, looking at Michael then back at the stranger again.

“Can’t be,” Michael replied, shaking his head. “It’s got to be a trick!”

Max jumped out of the Humvee, and Michael followed him. Alex, who had been riding in the third Humvee, behind the one Max and Michael were in, was already out and heading toward the newcomer, too. Inexplicably, both Alex and Liz, who because of her legs could not leave the vehicle she was in on her own, were smiling broadly.

“Don’t they even know when they should be afraid,” Michael wondered to himself, turning back and looking at the newcomer again. Michael walked up to the strange sky rider, and the two of them stood there, face to face. They were the same height. They had the same hair, the same eyes, the same build… though the newcomer might have been a few years older.

The newcomer smiled… then nodded slightly, with a look of satisfaction and relief on his face…

“I thought you guys looked like you needed some help down here.

“Yeah,” Michael said, nodding in return but still suspicious. “You thought right. I guess I owe you.”

The newcomer shrugged. “It was nothing that you wouldn’t have done yourself.”

“How would you know…” Michael started to ask reflexively, but he had already guessed the answer.

“Michael,” Alex said, strolling confidently up to the newcomer with a huge smile on his face. “Meet our Michael.”

“I just did,” the newcomer said, smiling.

Alex turned to Max and Michael of his group… “Remember when Liz and I were in the hospital and they thought we were in a coma…? Oh, wait… you wouldn’t know about that, would you!” Alex suddenly remembered that Max and Michael had still been missing and were presumed to be dead when that had happened.

“Well, I remember it,” Kyle said, walking up and looking at the newcomer. So does Dad… and Mom.”

Within seconds, the newcomer was surrounded by the other members of the group and having to hold his hands up to stop them from asking any more questions… for the moment. In time, he would answer all their questions.

“There were some helicopters headed this way,” Edmonds said, finally screwing up enough courage to approach the newcomer, too. “What happened to them?”

The newcomer shrugged. “If they were near the rift when I came out of hyperspace they probably either crashed or had to set down or return to base for repairs… The bike makes a pretty big bang when it comes out of hyperspace. It would have caused a lot of damage to any helicopters that were too close.”

Max smiled. “I can vouch for that. It broke all the windows out of the Humvees… I think it blew the clothes off of a couple of soldiers, too.

The newcomer Michael laughed. “Like the shebbles.”

Max looked puzzled, and Michael tried to explain…

“The first time I rode this bike, I came out of hyperspace in the hills of the Chanesio region on Antar. That region is famous for its shebble herding. Shebbles look kind of like a cross between a yak and a buffalo or something, and their abundant hair is harvested by the shebble herders in the region. It comes off pretty easily I found out. When I came out of hyperspace on my bike, a whole field full of shebbles was suddenly left as bald and pink as a newborn baby’s butt by the sonic blast… and shebble hair floated down out of the sky for most of the rest of that day. I thought it was pretty funny at the time… but the royal treasury had to reimburse the shebble herders for all their losses.” The newcomer smiled at the memory. “It WAS pretty funny, though! Maybe not as funny as Max’s hat with the big feather, but…”

“Sounds pretty funny to me,” Alex agreed, remembering the hat caper. “I wish I could have seen those shebbles.”

“I wish you could have, too,” the newcomer Michael said. “You’d have appreciated it.”

Alex grinned. “There’s somebody else over there who’d like to say hello to you.” He motioned toward Liz in the third Humvee. The newcomer smiled and walked over to the Humvee.

“Hello again, Liz.”

“Hi!”

“I’m glad to see you and Alex made it back safely and you’re both okay.”

Liz nodded. “Except that my legs don’t work again… not like they did on Antar when we were in those perfect new prefab bodies.”

“Yeah, I remember you said that you were paralyzed. Couldn’t Max help you?”

Max looked somewhat uncomfortable, and he shook his head. “I tried.”

The newcomer pulled out a small device and pushed a button. A second later, everyone had disappeared except him. He smiled and looked around at the empty Humvees with their broken windows. There was nothing but the breeze around him now. It was kind of nice. Michael got back onto his bike and twisted the throttle. The bike shot forward instantly, building speed at an incredible rate. In just under six seconds, the air in front of him split apart and opened, and the bike and its rider rushed into the rift. Then the rift closed back up with a thunderous BOOM, blowing the Humvees through the air like paper toys. On the hill, there was no longer anyone around to care.



**********



“You found them! They’re okay then?” Maria exclaimed excitedly.

“Just like Michael said,” Max replied. “They’re all okay and they’re all onboard.”

“That’s wonderful,” Liz said. “I’m so glad!”

“I am, too,” another voice said from nearby. The younger Max and Liz turned around to look.

“Rahn!” they both exclaimed at the same time.

“Omigod,” Liz said, “We thought something had happened to you!”

“It kind of did,” Rahn said. “I went back and found my old ship on the base where Maria said it was… and I flew it to the reservation to rescue you… my friends… but I was shot down.”

“You crashed?” the younger Max asked.

“I would have, but the people on this ship saw my ship going down and retrieved it with a magnetic wave beam. I’ve been here, working with them to save you… but we thought you were killed when the missiles hit the house. How did you escape?”

“Angie Lee covered us with a mind warp shield so we couldn’t be seen,” Liz said. “We were leaving when a bright light suddenly engulfed us then the missiles hit. We thought we were dead, but something protected us. We aren’t sure what.”

“The mind warp shield,” Varec said.

“So that really was what saved us then?” Max asked.

“I believe the beam we sent to try to retrieve you may have interacted with the mind warp shield in a way that may have protected you from the explosions… but the combined protection also caused the beam to lose you. We thought that you had all been killed in the explosion.”

“Well, I’m happy to report that that rumor was not accurate,” Max said.

“I am happy, too,” Varec concurred.

“Me, too,” Rahn added.

“That goes for us all,” Max from Antar said, speaking for everyone there. “Come on… there are some people for you to meet… and some things we all have to do.”



tbc

The Four Faces Of Rath



Culpepper’s Last Flight

Chapter 66 (Adapted from TNTDD Ch 32)

LXVI



“Climb out of the plane,” Agent Culpepper yelled up to the pilot of the F-14 preparing to taxi to the runway. The pilot pulled back his canopy and removed his helmet, then he powered down his jet.

“What’s going on?”

“I need your plane,” Culpepper said. “I’ve been ordered to use this one for a special mission.”

“I wasn’t told anything,” the pilot said.

“This is very hush-hush, Lieutenant. I expect you to keep it that way. You guys haven’t been able to dent that UFO with your missiles. General Haggerty wants me to try something else.”

“It won’t do any good,” the pilot said, shaking his head. “We’ve fired thousands of rounds and at least twenty missiles at that thing. It all just disappear into thin air. That ship’s impervious. It doesn’t even know we’re attacking it. It would take a nuke to bring it down.”

“That’s what I told the general,” Culpepper said.

“A nuke?”

“The general wouldn’t give me one. I had to come up with something just as good. Lieutenant, did you ever watch Star Wars… you know, the original movie?”

“Yeah… I saw it several times. I’ve got all the episodes on DVD.”

“Remember the Death Star?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how they destroyed it?”

“Yeah. Luke shot a missile into a small vent that went to the reactor in the core.”

“Right. And when the Death Star was being rebuilt in the third movie, they destroyed that one by flying one of those X-Wings right into the inside of the thing, firing into the reactor, and flying back out before it all blew up.”

“Yeah. I remember that,” the pilot said.

“Well, Lieutenant, there’s been an AWAC up there taking recon photos of that ship and the area and transmitting them back. I assume General Hawkins or General Haggerty sent it up. Look at these recon photos that have been coming in. Do you see anything?”

“I see one monster UFO,” the pilot said.

“Do you see this vent… right here?” Culpepper pointed to a part of the picture.

“You’re going to fire a missile into that?” The pilot looked unconvinced.

“It’s a bigger opening than it looks like in the photo, Lieutenant. That opening is big enough to fly a fighter jet into… and back out again.”

The pilot shook his head. “Uh uh… It may be big enough to fly into, but where are you going to turn around? You don’t even know what’s in there?”

“The reactor’s in there, Lieutenant. Recon has confirmed it. It’s emitting some kind of ions from the vent that can only come from a reactor. It’s not nuclear, but it should blow up with one helluva a bang just the same. There’s a similar vent on the other side of the ship. That’s a distance of three miles… one and a half in… fire my missiles… then one and a half out the other side. This F-14 can cover that distance in under 30 seconds. It should be enough time for me to get out before the whole thing goes up.”

“You’re crazy,” the pilot said, shaking his head. “Did General Hawkins approve this?”

“General Haggerty ordered it,” Culpepper lied.

The pilot breathed a deep breath and let it out slowly again. “Well, I guess he knows what he’s doing… but I wouldn’t want to fly into that thing and shoot a missile into its reactor… whatever it is… then try to get back out again.”

“Nobody’s asking you to, Lieutenant. I flew one of these planes for several years before I became part of the Unit. I’m taking this ride.”

“I’m glad it’s you and not me,” the pilot said honestly, stepping out of the way, as Culpepper climbed into the pilot’s seat and powered the F-14 up again. Moments later, Culpepper taxied the F-14 to the end of the runway… then the plane’s engines roared, as the jet rushed down the runway and lifted into the air, banking into the sun and heading off in the direction of the Reservation and Roswell.

The pilot watched his plane disappear then walked into the airmen’s barracks and set his helmet down on a table.

“I thought you were flying,” a voice behind him said.

The pilot turned around, and a young airman handed him a cup of coffee.

“Thanks. Yeah, I was, but apparently the General had other ideas.”

“Ah, yes! He can be like that.”

“Weren’t you on the first recon mission… the one that just got back,” the lieutenant asked the young airman.

“Yep… We got a great bird’s eye view of that thing. It’s huge! I can only wonder how they make it just sit up there like that.”

The lieutenant nodded. “So the primary propulsion it uses isn’t nuclear, huh?”

The airman raised his eyebrows a notch and shook his head. “How’d you know that?”

“Somebody told me. What kind of reactor does it use?”

The airman breathed in deeply then exhaled softly. “Anti-matter.”

The lieutenant’s face turned ashy white, and he appeared to reel. He ran one hand through his hair nervously then laid it on the back of the chair beside him. The young airman noticed that the knuckles of the lieutenant’s hand were turning white as he held onto the back of the chair; and realizing that something was very, very wrong, he turned several shades lighter himself… “What? What’s the matter?”

“Barker’s going to fire a missile into an anti-matter reactor in that UFO up there… with my plane,” Strickland said, trying to sound calmer than he actually was. “If he does… it’ll be the end of… maybe the world… but at least this hemisphere. Do you know what even a small amount of destabilized anti-matter could do?”

The airman shook his head. “Maybe they have a secure containment field or something around their reactor.”

“Maybe,” the lieutenant agreed, “but I can’t take that chance… the WORLD can’t take that chance. I’ve got to get to a radio.”

Lieutenant Strickland ran from the airmen’s barracks and jumped into a small truck that was sitting in front of the barracks with the keys still in it, then he drove across the airfield to the control tower. As fast as he could, he ran up the stairs and knocked desperately on the door. He heard the electronic latch unlock, and one of the controllers opened the door.

“Lieutenant?”

“I need to come in.”

The controller moved aside to let Lieutenant Strickland enter then immediately turned his attention back to the UFO on the horizon. It was clearly visible in the distance from the tower, and both of the controllers were watching it intently with something akin to deep awe, even though it sat quite a few miles away from the airfield or the base itself, over the Mesaliko Reservation and the town of Roswell.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Strickland said, grabbing for the microphone. He needn’t have bothered. The two controllers weren’t paying any attention to anything that he was doing. Strickland pressed the button to speak…

“Barker! Barker, come in!”

There was no answer. Strickland called again, but Barker was apparently not answering his radio. He probably had it turned off. That would be something Barker would do. That way if he was ordered back to base he could say that he never heard the order and blame Strickland with leaving his radio turned off.

“Dammit, Barker, come in!” Strickland yelled over the radio one more time. For a moment, he seemed to despair… but then he turned to the controllers…

“Has anyone tried to contact that ship up there?”

“What for,” the younger of the two controllers asked, with a tone of amusement in his voice. “We don’t have anyone on the base who speaks Martian.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe they might understand US,” Lieutenant Strickland asked, turning the frequency dial to scan for any possible signal source.

“What would we say to them,” the second controller asked.

“You might try, ‘hello!’” Strickland said with a tone of obvious irritation in his own voice.

Strickland picked up the mike and pressed the button again…

“This is… uh… this is Lieutenant David Strickland… If anyone can hear me on that ship… this is important. Come back… I mean, uh… reply!”

Strickland turned the dial several times, each time repeating his message again, then a few moments later, he got an unexpected surprise…

“Go ahead, Lieutenant Strickland. We’re listening.”

Both controllers looked at each other, their eyes wide.

Strickland pressed the button on the mike again… “Uh… okay, we, uh… we have… well, YOU have… WE ALL, I guess, have an emergency situation here. One of our agents is going to fly a fighter jet into a large vent on your ship. He intends to fire a missile into the reactor as he flies through the core. Do you understand me?”

There was silence on the radio. For a moment, Lieutenant Strickland’s heart sank into his stomach. Maybe they hadn’t understood anything he had said. What had made him think that they would understand him anyway? They probably didn’t even know what a jet was… or a missile… at least not by those names. And Barker… or Culpepper, as he preferred to call himself, would be getting there very soon… if he wasn’t there already.

“Lieutenant,” a voice came back over the air finally, “I have someone here who is qualified to discuss the risks with you.”

“I am Varec,” a different voice said, with an accent that the lieutenant couldn’t place. The other voice had sounded… well, now that he thought about it, almost American… perhaps even New Mexican. This new one, though, was different somehow… maybe Canadian. No. Not Canadian… Definitely not Canadian…

“Mister Varec,” Lieutenant Strickland said, shaking himself out of his thoughts and back to the matters at hand, “your ship and our world are in danger. If Agent Barker flies into your ship’s vent and fires a missile into your anti-matter reactor… and manages to blow it up… it could destroy not only your ship but potentially half of our world.”

“You are well-informed,” the voice from the ship above said.

“And desperate,” Strickland said sternly. “There’s no time. Barker may be there already.”

“Wouldn’t the outflow of air push anything back out of the vent,” Strickland heard the first voice ask the one named Varec.

“A bird, yes, Zan… maybe even a small plane,” Varec replied… “but probably not a slip-stream… what you call a ‘jet.’ It has enough power and speed to fly into our vent, but I do not think that it could fly through the containment area in the core.”

“I hope you’re right,” the first voice said… “because I think I see it coming now.”

Max, Michael, Varec, Liz, Alex, Isabel, Maria, and the others who were currently on the bridge crowded nearer to the huge front window of the ship to catch a glimpse of the fast approaching fighter jet.

“Strickland,” Varec said, “Warn your pilot not to enter the core! He will not survive.”

In the pilot’s seat of the approaching F-14 fighter jet, Barker, alias Agent Culpepper, sat transfixed, gazing at the huge mothership ahead of him with a single-minded, blind fanaticism and a trace of a smile on his face. He never really entertained the thought that anything could go wrong with his plan. Of course, somewhere deep inside his mind, he knew that it could… but there was a certain arrogant self-assuredness about Culpepper that wouldn’t allow him to seriously consider failure. He was sure of himself. He was sure of his abilities. He was sure of his plan.

Barker aligned the F-14 Tomcat with the huge spaceship’s oval-shaped starboard vent and adjusted his speed and flaps slightly, rotating the plane’s adjustable wings out just a bit for stability as he slowed the jet’s forward speed to make any final course adjustments. The plane wobbled ever so slightly as it continued to speed toward the opening. Seeing himself right on course, Barker increased the throttle to full and turned on the afterburners.

Strickland pressed the button on his mike to warn Culpepper away, but it was already too late. At that moment, Barker’s fully-armed F-14 Tomcat flew straight into the starboard vent at full throttle and with afterburners blazing. Max looked at Varec then at Michael. Both of them stood there silently… waiting.

It was exactly as Barker had imagined it inside the huge oval-shaped vent… The passage was easily sixty feet high… probably a bit more… and it was wider than four F-14 Tomcats placed wing to wing, not enough room to turn a jet around in but certainly enough for any crack pilot like himself to fly through. Barker’s F-14 Tomcat, by comparison, was sixteen feet high and had a wingspan of 64 feet, 1.5 inches “spread,” which is at their maximum span. The wings can be drawn back into the “swept” position, which reduces their span to only 38 feet, 2.5 inches, or “overswept” position, which reduces them almost another five feet, to 33 feet, 3.5 inches.

As Barker flew into the huge vent, he did notice a significant amount of air resistance. His plane’s airspeed dropped by about one fourth as it encountered the outflow of air coming from the core. It felt a bit like driving a car into a strong headwind. But Barker was not concerned. At full speed or three quarters speed, his success, he was absolutely positive, was assured. The plane’s afterburners would push him through the heavy outflow of air on the way in and onward to the core. There, he would fire his missiles… then the rushing outflow of air on the other side of the ship would actually provide him with a tailwind, helping him to get out before the ship exploded, as he exited with the airflow. It was a sweet plan.

What Barker, alias Culpepper, did not know was that the reactor was actually well protected and totally impervious to any of his missiles. But more important than that, to Culpepper, would have been the knowledge that the reactor was cooled by forced air flowing around the inside of the entire core at a speed greater than that of any hurricane ever known on earth. In a sense, this was a ship that actually breathed. When they were not in space, air was sucked in literally through every centimeter of the skin of the ship and diverted into the core where it flowed around the reactor many times before being vented out through the huge vents. The system was very efficient… but incredibly violent, wind-wise, within the core itself. In the vacuum of space, the air was unnecessary to protect the reactor.

As Culpepper flew Strickland’s F-14 Tomcat ever deeper into the enormous passageway inside the vent, heading toward the core of the mothership, Max and the others braced themselves for… they weren’t quite sure what. But Varec knew. It was he, after all, who had designed the ship… and he had helped to build it. Approximately forty seconds after entering the vent… a bit longer than expected due to the heavy air flow being vented from the core… Culpepper was approaching his expected target. Then he saw the huge, swirling storm circling the core ahead of him. It looked like a half-mile-wide monster tornado. There was no way around it. Belatedly realizing what he was flying right into, Culpepper instinctively pressed his right foot hard to the floor in a brief moment of sheer panic, but there was no brake pedal.

Suddenly and with total clarity, if only for a brief second, Culpepper realized that he was doomed.

The fighter jet slammed into the howling 3000-mile-per-hour winds with the force of a train wreck, and the winds slammed the jet to the side like a sledgehammer hitting a fly, exploding the plane’s already armed missiles one after the other. What was left… because it could no longer be identified as a jet… tumbled around the core with the wind, as it continued to break into smaller and smaller pieces. Within a matter of mere seconds, it had been reduced to tiny motes of flotsam barely large enough to even recognize. These circled the core a few hundred times at 3000 miles per hour before being ejected from the starboard and port vents and fluttering to the ground below like a million tiny silvery butterflies sparkling and glinting in the sunlight of a bright new day.

In a way, the silvery, glistening confetti falling in streams from the ship’s vents was almost beautiful. As for Culpepper, his body had either been pounded into oblivion by the winds and by the unexpected premature explosions of his own missiles or simply absorbed by the anti-matter reactor… in which case, Culpepper may ironically actually have provided a millisecond or two of extra energy to the ship that he had sought to destroy.

Varec swallowed nervously but was clearly unsurprised when no one onboard felt so much as a bump… even as all the missiles of the fighter jet blew up one-by-one inside the core. Fortunately, the explosions were effectively damped by the ferocious winds and caused no damage whatever to the ship or to the reactor.

“What’s going on there,” the voice of Lieutenant Strickland crackled over the radio. “What’s happening?”

“I believe you will need to replace your… jet,” Varec said simply, in total seriousness… “and your agent.”

There was a momentary silence over the radio before Strickland replied.

“Then the world is safe… and I take it, you are, too.”

“We are all safe,” Varec said, confirming Strickland’s statement.

“Good,” Strickland said simply, his voice a bit shaky but seeming sincere. “That’s good.”

“Lieutenant Strickland,” the southwestern-sounding voice of the one named Zan said, returning once again to the air… “Thank you.”

“For what?” Strickland asked, genuinely unassuming. “I didn’t do anything… well, nothing that helped anyone.”

“You did. You warned us. If we had needed to stop your agent, we could have done so… because of your warning… but it wasn’t necessary for us to take extraordinary, uh, ‘measures’ to stop him. The reactor is quite safe when the ship is in the atmosphere… because of the cooling winds that blow around it… and in space, where it doesn’t need to be cooled, it’s still well protected, I assure you, even without the winds. I am sorry about your… your loss, though.”

Strickland sighed. “Yes… that was a fine plane… an F-14 Tomcat.”

“Yeah… well… I was referring to the pilot, actually,” Zan replied.

“Culpepper?” Strickland exclaimed impulsively, momentarily sounding unexpectedly shocked. “Yeah well… thanks… but he knew what he was doing. That’s the problem really. He did know what he was doing… and he would have destroyed the world.”

“Lieutenant Strickland.”

“Yes?”

“There are a good many other jets… and helicopters… still flying around our ship. You may want to warn them of what will happen if any of them has any idea about flying through the core like your agent did.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Strickland said, actually managing a slight smile, “I think they got the message… It’s still streaming out of your vents.”



**********


The best laid plans of mice and men… Isn’t that what they say?
Oh, yeah, and of Antarians… and Antarian hybrids… Let’s not forget them. Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Alex, Isabel, Tess, Rayylar, Varec, and Jim from Antar in the original dimension (which Varec had now named “Dimension A”) had planned to come to Dimension Y, save their doubles from a disastrous end, and return home all in… oh, maybe three weeks time, including travel. But as the expression implies, plans don’t always go… well… as planned.

Okay, Varec didn’t actually call them Dimension Y and Dimension A. He used the first letter and the next to last letter of the Antarian alphabet, but those letters not being present on any known earth computer, we will use A and Y.

Max and his crew had planned to stay on earth in Dimension Y perhaps two or three days, but circumstances stretched that time out to well over five weeks during which time several important things happened, including some weddings and a most unusual honeymoon… a clandestine casino… and an almost disastrous attack on both of our gangs by a treacherous shapeshifter named J’Shalo, whom the Antarian group had once known as Nasedo in their dimension but who was unknown to the local group. One can read about all of that, though, in the companion chronicle, The Night The Dreams Died, so we will skip ahead to what happened next…

From J’Shalo, the two groups learned that Kivar, in this dimension, had recently been killed by one of his enemies on Antar… and so… our heroes agreed to take their younger doubles… and another shapeshifter, named Rahn, whom they had befriended… home. That’s right… home. You know… like “E.T call home…” That home. Antar. “Up there,” the place where Max was pointing when Liz asked where he was from. This, of course, meant still more time before they would get to go back to their own dimension.

Thanks to Rahn, on Antar in Dimension Y, they met a shapeshifter named Ta’lan, and Ta’lan rewarded Rahn’s benefactors with a huge meal and a very special gift for saving him and bringing him home. Unfortunately, the gift would have required the group from Dimension A to remain yet another day in Dimension Y (at least) and take a trip into the high mountains around the Ke’cje shapeshifters’ valley, so Max and crew decided that they would forego the gift and instead return home right away. Ta’lan gave Max a sealed note to give to her double when they got back home, and she gave the younger group from Dimension Y their gift the next day in the high mountains surrounding the Ke’cje Valley.

That pretty much brings us forward in time to the original group’s return to Antar in Dimension A… if we skip over the details of the trip back… and we will, because that took seven months, not merely a few days as expected. That story is yet to be told. The good news is, Max has a ghostwriter working on it from Liz’s diary notes as we speak. So that’s it… here we are…

Home… or is it?



tbc


Coming Up: Back home on their own Antar after a longer-than-expected return trip, our group on the New Granolith finally gets to relax. But at home, they learn that some things have changed… and some things that they thought had changed… well, read on. We’re getting close to the end.

The Four Faces Of Rath



Out Of A Nightmare

Chapter 67

LXVII



Maria dropped to her knees and ceremoniously, but with genuine emotion, kissed the soil she had just stepped onto after walking down the long ramp from the New Granolith. Standing beside her, Michael smiled and nodded understandingly. He was almost tempted to kiss the ground himself. Max took a long, deep breath of “real” Antarian air, and Liz hugged him and wiped away the tears that were forming in her eyes. Alex and Isabel spun around and around in the early morning Antarian sunlight, giddily acknowledging… and finally believing… that it was real. Nobody from the ship… not Jim Valenti, not Tess or Rayylar, not even the scientific-minded Varec appeared unaffected. They had made it! They really had finally come home.

It had been a long trip… much longer than any of them had expected. The trip to the other dimension had not taken that long, especially after they found a way to speed up their arrival. And the time spent with their doubles on earth had been rewarding, even if it had lasted somewhat longer than expected. But the trip home…

Tess had said it best when she surmised that they had taken a wrong turn somewhere and made a side-trip through hell. Nobody had ever disagreed with her assessment.

Even now, it was hard to believe that they were really home. It had taken barely over a week to get to earth in dimension Y… and almost seven months to get back. Seven very long and often disheartening months during which they began to think that they might never see home again at all… that this might be their lives, or whatever their lives were fated to become now, lost in the depths of space and time, far away from the homes they had once had, far away from the families they loved. They hadn’t even seen Kryys since leaving the other dimension. With his special abilities, Kryys found Maria and Michael, his mom and dad, in Dimension Y, but when they were ready to leave for home, he left, too, departing the same way he had come, through the time continuum, returning home almost instantaneously. The others had to come back by a more conventional route… in the Antarian mothership. But wherever the ship and its crew had been since leaving Dimension Y… even Kryys apparently hadn’t been able to find them.

No… no one at all was disagreeing with Tess’ assessment.

Only a scant thirty minutes earlier, everyone onboard had wondered what surprises this new planet would hold for them as they entered its atmosphere. They had long before almost given up hoping that it would be their Antar each time they found another Antar. They had learned to approach each new planet cautiously, without drawing attention to their presence, and to take nothing for granted. But this time was different… Max knew almost immediately. It wasn’t the golden sea rotating slowly below them that tipped him off. Most of the other “Antars” looked the same. It was the sudden connection he had to the jah-ees, the one he had healed, in particular. It had been like plugging in a lamp and the light suddenly coming on. Max hadn’t even realized that the connection was missing until it was suddenly restored. Then he knew. This was home… This was really it… their Antar. Convincing the others had taken some effort, but in the end they had each given in to their desire for it to be true and had dared to believe… or at least to hope. And now they knew.

Home! This was home! Their home! If they ever had had any doubts, those doubts were about to be dispelled completely. Jim looked up to see Kathleen coming toward him. He smiled broadly, and Kathleen began to run, throwing herself into Jim’s arms. Close behind Kathleen were Jeff and Nancy Parker, Philip and Diane Evans, Charles and Gloria Whitman, and Jeliya, who were running to keep pace with all the children. Kyle and Jeliya had not gone on the trip, but Kyle had shown up with Kryys right before they started back home. Jeliya had stayed on Antar to help watch the children with Kathleen and the grandparents.

Little Jayyd, running to get to her mom first, leapt almost ten feet into Maria’s arms, then Zorel and Kryys tackled her, almost taking her down with their exuberance. Maria swung them all three around and around, kissing and hugging them, until she was dizzy, then they tackled Michael, who joyfully held, hugged, and kissed the children he had never intended to be away from for so long and had thought he might never see again.

Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx quickly latched onto Liz and Max, who kissed and hugged them as though they might never let them go again. Liz looked around for Jeffy and spotted her baby in Jeliya’s arms. She held out her arms, and Jeliya started to walk toward her, but Jeffy wasn’t waiting, apparently. Dissolving into atoms, he disappeared from Jeliya’s arms and reappeared in Liz’s outstretched arms.

“He remembers me,” Liz cried, as tears ran down her cheeks. Jeliya nodded. After being away for over seven months, Liz had really feared that little Jeffy, who was not yet a toddler when she left, might not even know her anymore. It had given her a scary, empty, lost feeling in her stomach that she could not describe. But Liz’s heart leapt with joy when Jeffy came to her and she held him again and kissed him, telling him how much she loved and had missed him, something that she told all her children over and over again.

Not far away, Tess was on her knees with her arms around both Jiba and Drel and her face buried between theirs, as tears of joy flowed freely down her cheeks, too.

Mareeya and Ceelya, sitting in Alex’s arms, with Isabel hanging onto them, were all smiles. Though they might have been a little big by now to hold both at the same time, Alex wasn’t complaining. He had scooped them both up in one fell swoop, and right now, he could have held twice as much weight easily and not even noticed.

Amy and Liz-Jolee held onto Varec as though they might have to split him in half to satisfy them both, and Varec loved it.

Danyy Valenti threw his arms around Jim, who held his younger son and smiled from ear to ear, as his eyes grew misty. Kyle walked up to Jim and smiled… then nodded to his father. Jim nodded back then unexpectedly reached out and pulled Kyle to him and hugged him, too.

Feeling something nudge his arm, Danyy turned around and saw Jung-Jo, who had sneaked up silently at his side while he was hugging his father. Danyy squealed with delight and threw his arms around Jung-Jo’s neck and hugged him, too. Jung-Jo closed his eyes, his face etched with the classic expression of a very happy feline. He may have been a pawgor, a distant alien relative, perhaps, of saber-tooth tigers, but he was just a big, happy kitty cat right now. And like all the others, Jung-Jo was glad to be home. As everyone hugged and kissed, laughter gave way to sobs, then sobs gave way to laughter again.

Home. It felt good! It felt so very good… to everyone!



**********



The driver pulled the hovercar into the parking area beside the palace and passed his hand over a small symbol on the console. Instantaneously, the car and its occupants were transported down into the palace garage adjoining the underground portions of the palace. The engines, already whisper-quiet, whirred to a stop, then the car’s doors rose upward and Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, and Varec got out and walked to the side, as a second vehicle, a longer one, appeared in the place of the first one, which had already transported back out. As the doors of the second vehicle rose, Isabel, Alex, Tess, Rayylar, Jim, Kathleen, and several of the children got out. Once everyone was there, they all walked together down a short hallway then took a large, lavishly-appointed ascension chamber up to the main floor of the palace. The palace ascension chambers more closely resembled rooms than simple elevators. There were comfortable chairs to sit in, and the floors were carpeted. No one sat down this time, though. The ride up was short, and they were too excited. As the chamber stopped and the door opened, they stepped out to find the royal palace staff lined up waiting to greet them… and all smiles.

“Welcome home, Zan! Welcome home, My Lady!” the Antarian lady closest to them said enthusiastically. “It has been a long time. We missed you.” She turned and smiled at Maria… “My Lady… and Rath! It is good to have you back, too!”

“It’s been too long, Ami’tya,” Max replied with a smile. “We missed you, too. We missed our homes and families.”

“We’re really, really very glad to be back,” Liz added, giving Ami’tya, then the others in turn, males and females alike, a warm and heartfelt hug. At the moment, it just seemed right.

“Someone is waiting to see you, Zan,” Ami’tya said, pointing toward the parlor, as Liz hugged the last staff person.

Max looked at Michael with a puzzled look. “We just got back. Who else would know that we were here before we even got back to the palace?”

Michael thought for a minute. “That’s a good question, Max… one that I’d like an answer to. Come on.”

Michael and Max walked into the parlor, and Michael instantly scowled and turned around to walk back out without saying a word.

“Michael? Where are you going?” Maria asked, coming in behind him as he tried to leave.

“Anywhere… anywhere but here.”

“Maybe they have something important to tell us,” Maria insisted.

“Nothing I want to hear,” Michael replied, gently moving Maria out of his way.

“Maybe we should hear them out,” Max said cautiously, taking Michael by the arm.

Michael spun around to face Max… “Why? So they can tell me that I screwed up time again or… or… changed what was meant to be… or… that they’re going to change everything back the way it was? I don’t want to hear it, Max!”

Max looked at Durj’ori, the Nogi-K’ya, then at the Drax-ta-Kiya of Jeroglasst questioningly. The question was unspoken, but they understood.

“It is true, we disapprove of capricious changes to the time continuum… the river,” Durj’ori said.

“See?” Michael said, waving his hand in frustration then turning on Durj’ori…

“This is a family and friends reunion, Durj’ori! Which you are not either of! You understand that? We just got back from… from hell… or somewhere just about as fun. You’re the last person I want to see or talk to right now!” Michael took Durj’ori by the arm to escort him to the door then reached back to get the Drax-ta-Kiya with his other hand. “You, too, Drax. No offense, but I don’t want to hear that you guys are just calmly going to undo everything that we accomplished in the other dimension. And I don’t want to know it if I messed up the time continuum… river… thingamawhiz that you guys play and romp in all the time. So just get out! Make an appointment. I’ll try to work you in… say in about a hundred years. That’s the way you guys do things, isn’t it?”

“That is fine for me,” Durj’ori said, “but you may be a very old man.”

“I’ll risk it,” Michael scowled. “Besides, that’s what I was hoping… to be a very old man before I ever see you again.”

“When you change what was meant to be,” Durj’ori explained, oblivious to Michael’s protest, “you risk dire effects to the entire universe… unknown and dire effects. That is why the Nogi-K’ya are so careful.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t give a yegg’s hairy ass,” Michael replied caustically, shoving Durj’ori further toward the door.

At this point, Max couldn’t help coming to Michael’s defense…

“Michael didn’t do this on his own, Durj’ori. I agreed with it. It was the right thing to do. If you have a grievance, it will have to be with me, too.”

“Me, too,” Liz said, stepping forward.

“And me, too,” Maria said, stepping up and taking Michael’s arm protectively.

“You’ll have to take it up with all of us,” Alex said, stepping forward to add his own voice to those of the others.

“Durj’ori,” Isabel said, in an unmistakably threatening and icy tone, “if you change what happened in that dimension, and those… those… our doubles there die and never find the happiness or freedom that we helped them find, I’ll make sure, personally, that all your remaining days are miserable beyond belief.”

Isabel had no idea how she might make good on that threat. After all, the Nogi-K’ya were semi-immortal. They did die, but only after billions of years… even the Nogi-K’ya were unsure exactly what their life spans were. But Durj’ori took a step back as Isabel stepped toward him. It seemed that even the semi-immortal Nogi-K’ya knew when to retreat. And the look in Isabel’s eyes was saying that this would be a very good time.

“Actually,” the Drax-ta-Kiya said, “Durj’ori and I are not here to condemn you or your activities in the other dimension.”

The Drax-ta-Kiya was not an ally of the Nogi-K’ya, nor were their causes normally the same, but he felt that it would be best, for both of their sakes, if this were clarified quickly.

“”You aren’t?” Maria asked.

“We are not,” Durj’ori replied.

“Then why are you here,” Michael asked, still not convinced. “Why should I believe that you’re not here to gang up on me for changing the river of time or something? You may already have changed everything back the way it was before we went there to help our doubles? Are you going to swear that you didn’t change anything back… or that you won’t change it back later?”

“We will not… we did not,” Durj’ori said.

Michael seemed to relax noticeably when Durj’ori said this. “Okay… well… okay… that’s good to know…”

“Actually, we came to commend you,” the Drax-ta-Kiya said. “It would seem that your trip was very successful… and the results have been… acceptable.”

“Acceptable… I guess that’s high praise coming from you,” Michael said.

The Drax-ta-Kiya smiled. “Neither Durj’ori nor I are able to leave this dimension. The Nogi-K’ya are not bound by time, but they are restricted to this dimension. And I have not mastered the concept of traveling through dimensional time or space. In that respect… and some others… Kryys’ powers are far greater than my own… he merely needs… guidance. He is, after all, still only a child.”

Michael nodded, for once in total agreement with what the Drax-ta-Kiya was saying.

“I have always appreciated your guidance… and I appreciate your helping Kryys to understand his powers and use them wisely,” Michael admitted.

The Drax-ta-Kiya smiled slightly and nodded. “That has always been my pleasure.”

“The reason we are not displeased with what you have done in the other dimensions,” Durj’ori added, “is that you did not change time there. You changed their present. That is acceptable, especially when it is for… what you would call… a good cause.”

“Then you agree that it was a good cause,” Michael asked.

Durj’ori nodded. “Changing time always has consequences that are difficult to foresee. The Nogi-K’ya may take hundreds of years tracing all the ripples that will occur in the time continuum if a particular change is made… before permitting the change to be made. When you went into your past here, you changed time, and there were consequences. But this time, that did not occur.”

“Everything came out okay, though, after I went into my past before,” Michael insisted cautiously. “Didn’t it?”

“You brought back a plague… I believe you called it the Zwolinski plague. Fortunately, you and Max survived it.”

Michael winced painfully, as Durj’ori reminded him, and his head slumped…

“I was unable to save thousands of other Antarians who died from it, though. I was responsible for their deaths for bringing the plague to Antar.”

The Drax-ta-Kiya smiled again… or appeared to smile… almost, as he sometimes was prone to do. One was never quite sure.

“Rath, you really must do a census on your planet sometime. After you and Zan came out of it, there was a slight shift in the flow of time. I don’t guess you would have noticed.”

“A shift… how? What does that mean,” Max asked.

“The people who died never died, Zan.”

“But… how…”

“A slight nudge to the river of time.”

“You did that?”

The Drax-ta Kiya shook his head.

“Who then?” Max asked. Then his eyes widened with sudden intuition… “Kryys?”

“No. Kryys wanted to do it, but he knew that the river held another future, so he waited. The Nogi-K’ya did it.”

“The Nogi K’ya? Without a ten thousand year study? They’re getting reckless and carefree,” Max exclaimed reflexively, with more than a touch of sarcasm.

The Drax-ta-Kiya smiled. Max thought that it was the first time he had ever seen him actually smile.

“They thought that they sort of owed it to you.”

“No argument there,” Michael said. “They screwed up the whole time thing in the first place. It caused us a lot of grief.”

“Well, they apparently had a contingency plan… a plan worked out over several millennia… for dealing with such an emergency. When their other efforts failed to produce the desired results in the time needed for… more mortal beings like us… they fell back on the plan. They have corrected all the anomalies now. Those things which still remain uncorrected were deemed… acceptable.”

“Acceptable?” Max repeated with a tone of exasperation. “Acceptable? What is acceptable about making mistakes and then just leaving them that way?”

“Your baby, Jeffy, was a mistake, Zan. He was created in a different time bubble, a bubble that no longer exists… a bubble that perhaps never really existed in the real sense of time, as you know it. If the Nogi-K’ya had returned everything to the way it was, without allowing for exceptions, there would be no Jeffy.”

Max swallowed hard then nodded. “I guess I do owe them then.”

“It would seem so.”

“What else did they not change back?”

“They left almost everything that Rath… or Michael… did in the alternate time line he was in the way he changed it. They deemed the changes he caused to be… desirable.”

Max looked at Michael, and Michael shrugged.

“Dumas Zwolinski will grow up to be a different person because of your intervention,” Durj’ori said, turning to Michael. “Hank won’t change, but he’ll stop and think first now, and that will lead to small improvements in his behavior. The ripples from these and other changes that you caused will touch many other people through the millennia. We have traced and plotted these changes and have deemed them all desirable… so we have allowed them to remain. We do not believe in changing time, but we believe that after it has been changed, all possible time lines must be considered.”

“So I did something right?” Michael asked cautiously.

The Drax-ta-Kiya smiled again. “Apparently so.”

Michael seemed momentarily stunned, then a bemused look came over his face. Max saw it and smiled.

Maria put both of her arms around Michael and hugged him. “Well, I knew you were right, Michael. I’ve always known it. You’ve always been right as far as I was concerned… no matter what anyone else out there might have thought. When you were searching for yourself in the past, all of us here knew who you were… and we know who you are. You’re someone with a heart. Whether you’re painting beautiful portraits or saving kidnapped children or protecting the kingdom or… or being my soul mate… you’re someone with a heart. I don’t think that can ever be wrong. In the end, it’s the only thing in this universe that can be right.”

Isabel nodded and stood beside Maria. “You know I haven’t always agreed with you on everything, Michael…”

Michael grinned, remembering how he had goaded and irritated Isabel with his off-the-cuff remarks when Liz and Alex from the other dimension had been here with them.

“But I could have told the Nogi-K’ya what Maria just said… without a ten-thousand-year study,” Isabel continued. Then she turned to Durj’ori… “We’re glad you guys finally figured it out.”

Durj’ori thought about expounding on the possibilities of having good intentions and still making mistakes, especially in matters affecting time, but he wisely had second thoughts. Instead, he just nodded.

“Well,” the Drax-ta-Kiya said, standing up. “There is an interesting expression among the people of the planet that Rath grew up on… ‘All’s well that ends well.’ I, uh… I think we can all agree that, in this case, at least, that quaint saying is true. Durj’ori… if you will accompany me, perhaps we should leave these people alone now so that they can enjoy their homecoming. Oh, and… Zan… have you had any more dreams about flying?”

“How did you…?” Max started to ask, but the Drax-ta-Kiya held up one hand…

“Don’t forget that letter of acquaintance that the shapeshifter, Ta’lan, gave you to give to her double in this dimension. It may be… eye-opening.” Having said this, the Drax-ta-Kiya dissolved into a billion tiny glowing atoms and disappeared, taking Durj’ori with him.

Max looked at Liz and reached into his pocket for the crumpled paper.

“I had almost forgotten it. So much has happened in seven months.”

“What does it say,” Maria asked.

Max shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s sealed. Ta’lan said to give it to her double as soon as we could after we got back home. She said it would explain some things… and it’s our gift from her and Rahn for helping Rahn and bringing their king back.”

“Then I guess we need to make a trip to the Kec’je shapeshifters’ valley,” Michael said, “But not today. Tomorrow… or the next day maybe. Today, I just want to be with my family again… in my own home.” Michael put his arm around Maria and smiled… “And I have a special gift for you, Maria, of my own.”

Maria grinned and hugged Michael. “Ta’lan’s gift can wait another day, I think. Right now I need yours a lot more.”



tbc


Coming up: The Kec’je secret

The Four Faces Of Rath



Ta’lan

Chapter 68

LXVIII



Ta’lan unfolded the crumpled note that Max had given her and read it… then she turned it around several times aimlessly, as though thinking about it, and read it again. After several minutes, she folded it back up carefully, smoothed it out with her hand, and handed it back to Max.

“You say this was given to you by me… only in another dimension… my double?”

Max nodded. “Yes… Exactly.”

Ta’lan stood up and walked around Max and Michael then turned and looked at them…

“I must say, I was never convinced that things like alternate dimensions really existed. This is… well… extraordinary if it is true.” Then, apparently remembering that Max was their king, she quickly added, “I’m not saying that it’s not true, of course, only that it is… extraordinary.”

“We understand,” Liz said. “We thought the same thing. We didn’t know until recently that alternate dimensions existed either. I mean… it’s always been in the realm of possibility… a theory. But no one had ever proved it… well… that we know of anyway.”

Without replying, except with a slight wave of her hand, Ta’lan unexpectedly walked into the next room and returned with a tray of drinks. She passed the tray around, and each one took one of the thin, fourteen-inch tall, one-inch wide high-fluted glasses filled with a bluish-amber liquid. The odd, constantly color-changing liquid was pretty… perhaps even appealing… in a strange, alien way.

This is a Ke’cje drink called da’nish,” Ta’lan said, as they each took a glass from the tray. “It is quite good. You will like it.”

Ta’lan watched, but only Kyle took a drink. The others sat with their drinks in their hands, waiting.

“Max, this is really good,” Kyle said enthusiastically, taking another sip. “Try it!”

“I would wait if I were you, Kyle,” Michael said.

“This is too good to wa… wait,” Kyle said, already beginning to slur his words.

“Why don’t all of you drink,” Ta’lan asked with an innocent smile.

“We’re waiting for cookies,” Michael replied.

“Qnist’as,” Liz corrected.

“Micha… Mi-chael!” Kyle slurred, “That’s rude, man! You don… don… don’t go iv somewuz house ‘n jus’ ask for coo… cookies. Ha… hav some mannnners.”

“Qnist’as,” Max replied, “Their called qnist’as. You don’t drink da’nish without qnist’as, Kyle. They keep you from getting bombed… like you are now.”

“Oh,” Kyle replied with a giddy smile, taking yet another sip. “Now yoush tellsh me.”

Ta’lan smiled and nodded then stood up and went back into the other room, reemerging momentarily with another tray, this one piled high with qnist’as.

“I was testing you,” she said as she passed the tray around, “But I guess you know that. I had to be sure you really had been in a Ke’cje house and had not been tricked by another species of shapeshifters… some of the bad ones… especially the shadow dwellers. They’re not Antarian.”

Max nodded. “Kyle wasn’t with us in the other dimension until we started back. His double was there, but our Kyle stayed here with his wife and all the kids when we went. We needed someone to stay behind and take care of things here. He didn’t know about the da’nish or the qnist’as.”

Kyle smiled and held his glass up in a toast, looking through the sometimes bluish, sometimes amber fluid with one eye closed and a big smile on his face.

“Eat your cookie, Kyle,” Maria said, sticking one of the qnist’as in his mouth. Kyle sputtered but chewed the cookie and swallowed it. Within seconds, a change began to come over him, as he began to sober up, and his face reddened a bit as he suddenly realized that everyone was looking at him…

“What happened? Did I do something to embarrass myself?”

Liz smiled and shook her head. “No. You just got a little drowsy for a moment there, Kyle. You have to eat the qnist’as with your da’nish or you wind up in la-la-land.”

“Oh.” Kyle heaved a cautious sigh of relief, apparently not quite remembering what he had or had not just done. “That’s strong stuff, isn’t it?” he said, taking another bite of qnist’a then another sip of his da’nish. “It’s really good, though.”

The others all ate one of the qnist’as then took a sip of the bluish-amber fluid.

“It is good,” Liz agreed. “Just don’t ever forget the qnist’as.”

“I won’t ever again,” Kyle said with a sheepish grin. “Trust me on that!”

“So explain to me exactly how you came to meet my double in this other dimension,” Ta’lan said, sitting back down to listen. “It is unusual for outsiders to come here to the Ke’cje valley… and when they do, they usually do not remember anything when they leave.”

“Not if they drink some of that da’nish,” Kyle nodded.

“The Qu’rosk trees,” Liz said. “It’s the Qu’rosk trees. They’re everywhere. They’re beautiful but intoxicating to outsiders.”

“Is everything here intoxicating,” Kyle asked.

Ta’lan smiled and shook her head.

“Just the da’nish… and the flowers on the trees. Their fragrance gives everyone a feeling of well-being. The Ke’cje are accustomed to it, and we can tolerate it, but outsiders become somewhat giddy and talkative. They forget where they are. Once they have breathed the fragrance for a while, everyone talks. And when they leave, they forget where they have been. But we do not get many visitors. In this valley, we are well-protected by high surrounding cliffs on every side.”

“How do you get out, then,” Kyle asked.

“We fly.”

“Fly? Oh, right… you can shapeshift. Are we going to forget we were here when we leave?”

Ta’lan shook her head again. “Not if you do not breathe the fragrance of the Qu’rosk trees’ flowers outside for very long. Now tell me how you met my double in the other dimension.”

“Well,” Max said, setting his glass down on the tray, “it was Rahn who led us there… here… to the Ke’cje valley.”

“Rahn!” Ta’lan exclaimed.

Momentarily startled by Ta’lan’s reaction, Max stopped talking.

“Go on, please,” Ta’lan coaxed.

“Don’t be mad at Rahn,” Max said. “He was helping me… my double, I mean… to get his kingdom back.”

“I’m not mad at Rahn,” Ta’lan said. “I’m sad. When you mentioned Rahn’s name, my heart jumped. He is… was… like a son to me. I practically raised him myself. I taught him everything he knows. And I haven’t seen him in… I think it’s been sixty… seventy years now. Rahn would have contacted me before now if he had been able to. I can only assume…”

Ta’lan’s voice trailed off, and her eyes misted up.

“Omigod,” Liz said softly, touching Max on the arm. “Max, do you think…”

“…that he’s still a prisoner on the base back on earth?” Max asked, finishing Liz’s sentence for her. “I don’t know. Our doubles rescued him in the other dimension. In our dimension, we never did.”

Liz looked at Maria, and both of them sat in stunned silence, their mouths open for several moments.

“We can’t abandon Rahn,” Maria said. “He helped us so much… He’s like… one of us.”

“This Rahn doesn’t even know us,” Michael pointed out quite correctly, though no one there felt that to be the case after all they had been through with his double in the other dimension. Even Michael seemed to be trying to convince himself of it… and not very successfully.

“Well we just got back from a very long and difficult trip,” Max said. “I guess we could plan a rescue mission, though. I’ll ask Varec how long it would take the New Granolith to get to earth at the fastest speed.”

“We don’t need to do that,” Liz said. “We’re in our own dimension. The spheres will work here.”

Maria’s eyes lit up, and a smile came over her face.

“I’ll be the one to go,” Michael said. “I can rescue him if things get hairy.”

“There won’t be anything to get hairy,” Liz replied confidently. “I’ll go. All I have to do is pop into his cell, get him, and bring him back. They’ll never even know where he went.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Michael objected. “I should be the one to go. You and Max are needed here.”

“Oh, like, and you’re not?” Liz asked defiantly. “Michael, you’re needed here as much as anybody… much more than I’m needed…”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Max said with a half smile. “No offense Michael.”

“None taken.”

“I thought Dan Klein ended all that crazy alien hunting stuff in our dimension after the president made him the head of the agency,” Alex said. “Do you really think they could still be holding someone on the base and no one knows about it?”

Max nodded solemnly. “I think it’s possible. Dan wouldn’t even have to know about it. The president wouldn’t even have to know about it. Those guys didn’t answer to anyone. They were a renegade unit. They thought they were saving the world. Zwolinski may have been changed when Michael went back to the past, but there was that FBI guy, Pierce, and there were others who were just as bad who were part of that whole thing. I think it’s possible. We won’t know for sure until we go there and find out.”

Michael turned around to Liz to insist that she give him control of the sphere, but at that moment, Liz stepped through the portal, which she had quietly called while the others were talking. As the portal closed up behind her, Liz said simply, “Take me to Rahn.”

In her haste to rescue a friend, Liz hadn’t followed her own cardinal rule: use the sphere of visions first to see where you may be going. Liz stepped out of the portal only to find herself looking into a very bright light. For a moment, she was blinded by it, but then she made out some things around her… It looked like a lab of some kind. The walls were bare and white. And under the center of the lights lay a man on a gurney. He appeared to be connected to various different wires and devices, and she couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. Liz stepped forward to find out, and that’s when something hit her from behind… hard. The room spun momentarily, as she collapsed to her knees then to the floor and the bright lights disappeared into darkness. As she lay there in a state of semi-consciousness, she vaguely heard voices around her…

“Where did she come from?”

“I don’t know. She just appeared out of nowhere… She must have made herself invisible to get in.”

“You think she’s one of them? She may have been sent to rescue him. Could she be one of his people?”

There was no answer from the second man.

“Only one way to find out, I guess,” the first voice said. “This guy over here’s never been any use to us. Almost seventy years of shock treatments, probes… I’ve even removed bits of his organs… and he still won’t tell us anything or do anything that’s nonhuman at all… except for the fact that he’s lasted this long and doesn’t look a day older than when he was brought in here… or so they tell me… I wasn’t even born then myself.”

“I’m telling you,” the second voice said, “He doesn’t understand our language.”

“He understands,” the first voice said confidently, “He understands. He’s just stubborn. Let’s see what it will take to get this one to talk.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

There was a pause, then the first man replied, “We dissect her… piece by piece. One way or the other, I’m getting something out of this one.”

“Oh my God,” Liz thought with a sick feeling, as she drifted into unconsciousness, “The white room. What have I done?”



tbc

The Four Faces Of Rath



The Whitest Room

Chapter 69

LXIX



Liz opened her eyes slowly and noticed a light shining in her face from above. She seemed to be lying on something hard now, but she didn’t think it was the floor. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. Her first thought was to check herself over to see if anything had been removed… not clothes… but organs, tissue samples, or the like. After a quick appraisal, she decided, with some relief, that she had not been cut… at least not yet. Even her clothes were still intact. This was definitely a good sign! Another good sign was that she did not appear to be tied up, chained, manacled, or otherwise restrained. But where was everybody?

Liz looked around the room. It was even whiter than she remembered it… almost bleached white now… as though scoured of all color by some very powerful detergent or force. In fact, it was probably the “whitest” room she had ever seen in her life. And it appeared that she was the only person there. It was perplexing… and more than a little bit discomfiting. She would rather have her torturers where she could see them. Being all alone in the room made a cold shiver of anticipation go up her spine. What were they planning? And why had they left her here all alone and unrestrained?

She took a deep breath and told herself that it really didn’t matter. They couldn’t hurt her… well, not when she was awake and conscious anyway. She had the sphere of protection. All she had to do was call on it. She didn’t know exactly what it would do to protect her, but she knew with absolute certainty that it would. Of this there wasn’t the slightest doubt.

But where was everybody? And where was the man she had seen on the gurney before? Had that been Rahn? She never got close enough to be sure. One thing she did know for sure, though, was that she wasn’t going to just lie here like a lamb on the altar of some FBI or army rejects’ paranoia and just wait for them to return and have their way with her.

Liz leapt from the gurney with a bounce and headed for the door. She knew that she could call the portal and it would take her straight back home… or anywhere else she wanted to go. But that wouldn’t save Rahn, and she was determined to return the favor Rahn had shown them in the other dimension by saving him now… or his double… in this one. Carefully, Liz opened the door just a crack and peeked out. At first, her mind refused to accept what she was seeing, and she shook her head and looked again. Then she opened the door all the way.

There was nothing outside the room… just the blackness of space… the twinkling of distant stars… the vastness of the cosmos.

“What the…”

Liz leaned forward carefully, holding onto both sides of the doorway with her hands, and looked down. There was nothing below the room, either, as far as she could see, except space. And yet… there was breathable atmosphere in the room… even with the door wide open.

“What happened,” Liz asked rhetorically, knowing that there was no one there to answer. In her place, most people would have been terrified, but Liz was calm… perplexed and confused… but calm. She knew that she could get home anytime by calling the portal; she wasn’t stuck here. But then again… after the events of the last seven months… through various alternate dimensions… who could be sure of anything? Liz suddenly began to sweat, as fear crept up her spine. Just to be sure, she called out, and the portal appeared. She breathed a deep sigh of relief and relaxed again.

“It’s alright. I don’t need you yet. I… I’ll call you again when I’m ready… soon.”

The portal disappeared as it had come, leaving Liz alone with her thoughts. She looked out the door again. Nothing. Just stars twinkling in the distant vast darkness of space.

“Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m not really awake. They gave me something and I’m hallucinating.” Liz looked at her hands and decided that it was really her, not a hallucination.

“Where is Rahn?” she asked, again knowing that no answer would be forthcoming.

She looked around and then called for the sphere of visions…

“Please show me Rahn… right now.”

A mist appeared in the room, and as it smoothed out and became calm, a vision appeared in its midst. But the vision was almost as much a riddle as what was going on here. In the mist, Liz saw only the room she was in… and the gurney. There was no Rahn.

“I… I guess I wasn’t clear,” Liz said, almost apologetically, “I said ‘Rahn,’ not ‘room.’”

Liz waited, but there was no change in the vision. Exasperated, she sighed and waved her hand dismissively…

“You may go. Thank you.”

The mist disappeared, and Liz rubbed her hands together nervously. “That never happened before. The sphere never made mistakes… not like that.” Liz looked at the gurney. The vision had shown her the gurney. Could Rahn be hiding under it maybe? Liz picked up the sheet that hung down from the side of the gurney, but there was nothing underneath. She looked around the room again then leaned back on the gurney and put both hands behind herself to boost herself up onto it… The gurney moved.

Believing that she had moved the gurney with her weight, Liz pushed it up against the wall then tried to sit on it again. It moved again.

“Okay, that’s not normal,” Liz mused out loud. “Rahn, if that’s you, turn yourself back into… something I can recognize NOW!”

As she said this, the gurney stretched and contorted, but it all happened so fast that Liz was unable to follow the motions until it was too late. The “gurney” had become a snake… a very large snake… perhaps a python or an anaconda from the look of it, though Liz wasn’t trying to identify it; she just wanted to get it off of her. Unable to move her arms, as the huge serpent coiled and tightened against them, Liz let go with a very “un-Liz-like” string of epithets, disparaging everything that slithered on the ground and even some snake mamas.

This seemed to have an unexpected effect. The huge snake relaxed its grip, if only slightly, and turned its head to look directly into Liz’s eyes, its forked tongue flicking only inches from her face.

“I know you’ve got a crush on me, but if we’re going to get all warm and cozy,” Liz said feistily, turning her face to one side, “Can we at least skip the tongue?”

The serpent held its tongue momentarily, but apparently was unable to do so for long. Within seconds, the tongue flicked out again. Then the serpent relaxed its grip and began to change… this time into a man.

“Alright, Rahn, you’ve got some explaining to do,” Liz said, clearly irritated, after the change was complete.

“You are the one who must explain,” Rahn replied calmly. “I could change back into a serpent again and hold you that way… or swallow you if I wanted to. I only let you go because it seems that it is impossible to keep my tongue in my mouth as you demanded… to be a snake and not to be a snake. It just happens reflexively. And also, I let you go because we must talk.”

“You don’t want to eat me, Rahn. I’d give you indigestion.”

“I do not believe that you would cause me any digestive upset,” Rahn said, looking Liz over.

“Well, let’s assume that I would,” Liz insisted firmly and with finality.

“Who are you,” Rahn asked. What did you do that made… this happen?” Rahn indicated the void beyond the door.

Liz looked at the gaping void… “I was kind of hoping you could tell me that. I don’t know what happened. I came here to save you and take you home to Antar… to Ta’lan… but someone hit me from behind, and when I woke up, this is where I was. Well… actually… I was lying… on top of the gurney… on top of… you.” Liz looked at Rahn.

“Yes, well, there is an explanation for that,” Rahn said, “You know Ta’lan?”

Rahn appeared to be moved at the mention of Ta’lan’s name.

“She’s waiting for me to return with you. Now about that explanation…?”

Rahn smiled just slightly. “Well, at the exact moment you were hit on the head, it was like everything exploded in the room. When I could see again, you were lying on the floor unconscious. I needed to talk to you… to learn what had happened… but I assumed that you had caused it and might try to kill me like you killed the others… so I pushed the gurney out the door and took its place… to hide myself from you until I could be sure of your intent. I lifted you onto my back so that I would know when you woke up. Sometimes I… go to sleep.”

“Wait… The explosion killed the other men…?” Liz asked, shocked.

Rahn nodded. “They were ejected from the room by some great force. They floated away in space, so I would say that it killed them, yes.”

“The sphere of protection!” Liz exclaimed softly, realizing what must have happened. “It had to be the sphere of protection. I didn’t call it, but it saved us once before when no one even knew that we were in danger. It must have thrown the whole white room into space and thrown them out to protect me.”

“Why did it not also kill me?” Rahn asked.

“I guess it knew that you wouldn’t harm me. I don’t know how it knows, but it always seems to. If you had really intended to hurt me, you would have died when you pounced on me as a snake.”

“Then I think it was a good thing that I did not try to eat you,” Rahn said dryly. It was impossible for Liz to know if he was joking or serious. Rahn rarely displayed his true feelings openly, though his double had shown an amazing amount of emotion -for a shapeshifter- when he had seen his home valley again from the New Granolith’s window for the first time in seventy years.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but go home… to Antar,” Liz said with a smile. “This room can just stay out here… wherever ‘here’ is. The men who were holding you can’t hurt either of us anymore… or anyone else. You’re a free man, Rahn… I mean, a free Ke’cje. Are you ready to go home?”

Rahn’s face, not usually easily readable, became a jumbled mass of emotions, as the reality of his new situation actually began to dawn on him. He was free. He really could go home. Home!

“How long will it take to get there?”

“How long does it take to step through a portal?” Liz asked, smiling. “PORTAL!”

When Liz called, the portal appeared. It looked more like a large, borderless, free-floating mirror than a portal. Rahn touched it, and his touch sent ripples spreading from one side of the “mirror” to the other.

“Come on,” Liz said, taking Rahn by the hand. Then she stepped into the “mirror,” taking Rahn with her.

They stepped out in Ta’lan’s living room.

Shapeshifters don’t show emotion. It was almost an axiom on Antar. And oceans don’t suddenly dry up and stone walls don’t generally move… but they can crumble. Liz looked at Max and smiled, tears coming to her own eyes, as Ta’lan rushed forward to hold Rahn, and the two revealed a side of the Ke’cje shapeshifters that few, outside of their own people, had ever witnessed.

Rahn was the long-missing child, believed dead, returning home at last. Ta’lan was the “mother” he had always known… practically the only mother he had ever known. She had raised him after his own mother disappeared when he was barely more than a toddler. Rahn still remembered his real mother, but it was Ta’lan who had filled that position with so much love and affection for so many years of his life. And a shapeshifter’s years were long. Rahn, who was over a hundred years old now, was barely out of adolescence, a young man just coming into his prime.

“Rahn what happened,” Ta’lan asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “Where were you all this time?”

“On Eluymer… a place they call earth. I went there with the original scouts. It was supposed to be a quick trip. We were going to find a place for the pods and wait for the carekeepers then return home. It didn’t work out that way.”

“No, it didn’t,” Ta’lan said, giving Rahn yet another kiss on the cheek. Liz didn’t even know that shapeshifters did that. “But then… why not,” she asked herself. “They’re basically human after all… more or less… kind of. Different but basically no different.” Liz smiled and leaned on Max, and he pulled her closer into his arms. Maria leaned over unexpectedly and kissed Michael, who smiled and put his arm around her then kissed her back. Alex and Isabel leaned into each other and just sighed. It was a good moment… one of those wonderful, happy moments that are all too rare… and it brought a warm, abiding glow to all their hearts.



tbc


Coming up: Ta’lan honors the request made by her double from the other dimension.