Too many questions are arising in Doc's mind about this mission, and he decides a quick trip to the library is in order. Sure, the entire planet is wired for instant information exchange, but Doc has always preferred the tactile experience of searching through physical pages. Besides, they've got some time to kill.
There is an old public library not far from the cathedral. He parks the jeep out front, careful to lock it after burying their armament beneath their camping gear. He checks the time bomb once more and sets an alarm for ten minutes before it detonates. They have to be back in the jeep by then, or else they may inadvertently take some bystanders for a ride, and worse, be stuck without a jeep.
Although Thunderhorse's literacy program is coming along, he is reluctant to enter into a place filled with so many "runes" as he calls them. The library is its self a converted church with vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and crosses. Thunderhorse remains in the vestibule muttering about wizardry and such, refusing to enter into the place further.
Mark has never been to a library, either. He stops to marvel at the number of books but is eventually drawn to the Children's Literature by the bright colors.
Doc heads straight for the historical reference section. He hadn't thought of the fact that they would all be in Norwegian, but fortunately his sunglasses can translate for him. They also tie into the library's searching program, making it quick and easy to find a handful of titles that might help him in his search.
Unfortunately, there's no king named Nathan in any historical reference. Nathan isn't even a Nordic name. He does find a few references to Haakon the Good but everything says he died at Fitjar in disagreement with Thunderhorse's tale of him being an everliving sorceror. He also finds a lot of information about Harald III, the last Viking King, his wars with the Saxons, and his death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
In their destination time, Norway would be briefly divided between Harald's sons, Magnus II in the north and Olaf III in the south until Magnus "unexpectedly" dies of ergot poisoning, leaving Olaf the sole ruler. Olaf made peace with the Normans who were presently conquering England, learned to read and write, improved relations with the pope, and built churches right here in Trondheim. He is buried here along with his father.
Doc can find no reference to Thunderhorse's home town of Hilton or the Tower of Venis where he says Jazelle was taken. He's not suprised about not finding an ancient village on a modern map, but towers tend to leave remains, have records of their construction or destruction, something like that. But there is nothing.
Doc's disappointement is multiplied when his eagerness to dig further is interrupted by his beeping alarm. The time bomb is going to go off soon. He pulls Mark away from the dirty magazines he's migrated to and finds Thunderhorse wandering near the river.
Doc's imagination is racing. What will it look like when they arrive? What has changed over the years? Who will they meet? ...Who will see them arrive?
A Trip to the Library
A Tour and a Tale
The Pu arrives in Trondheim early in the morning. It's a small city, but not too quiet. It glows quite nicely in the rising sunlight. Veronica parks near the Nidelva and powers down.
"Okay, we're here," she says. "Doc, you wanna help me unload the Jeep?"
"Sure thing," he replies.
Veronica flips a series of switches. The cargo bay doors can be heard whining open. "Go back and release the magnetic tie-downs and I'll get the cargo arms ready."
Doc heads back into the cargo bay. Fresh air hits him as he opens the hatch. It's a pleasant 70 degrees or so out. The warm breeze caries the refreshing yet slightly fishy scent of sea mist.
He disconnects the magnetic tie-downs that held the Jeep steady through their space flight. As he does so, a pair of robotic arms unfold themselves from along the seam of the cargo bay doors. At the end of each arm is a robotic claw padded with thick layers of silicon. They stretch and flex synchronously as they go through their system tests.
"All the ties are loose," Doc calls back through the hatch.
"Okay, stand back," Veronica responds. She stares blankly at the controls, her mind now integrated with the ship. The robotic arms reach steadily down and grip the Jeep in the front and back.
Doc breaths sharply as the connect, but they don't warp the side panels at all. As they begin to lift it out, Doc can see that the fingers are lifting by the frame at the bottom. They carry the Jeep forwards and place it gently down just in front of the Pu where Mark and Thunderhorse scramble to get out of the way.
Doc heads out to join them while Veronica puts away the cargo arms and closes the shuttle's doors.
A passerby stops to comment, "That's a fine old antique."
"Thank you. I've had it for years."
"It has tires and everything. Fuel cell generator?"
"No, internal combustion."
"Wow, that is old. Does it still run?"
"We'll find out," Doc replies. He pulls the keys from his pocket. He hops in the driver's seat and turns it over. The engine bursts to life with ease.
"Impressive," says the old man. "Well, enjoy your morning!" He continues on his walk.
Veronica calls in on the com system as Mark and Thunderhorse climb into the Jeep. "I'm taking off, now. I'll see you guys in a thousand years."
The Pu lifts off again and rips into the sky.
Doc checks the time bomb. They've got a couple hours to kill. He puts the Jeep in gear and starts cruising around the old roads of the city. Hover cars dodge and weave around them, some jumping over the roof. Doc takes it easy and continues his leisurely tour of the city.
"So, Thunderhorse," Doc calls to the back seat. "Why do you speak German when you come from Norway?"
Thunderhorse is quiet for a moment. "I do not know what you are talking about."
Doc tries to rephrase. "You speak an old German dialect yet we're here in Norway to visit your past. Why don't you speak Norse?"
Thunderhorse looks at him quizically through the rear-view mirror, partially because of this linguistic confusion, and partially because mirrors are foreign to him. "German? I do not understand this."
"You know, the land of the Eider river? The Danube? The Rhine? Anything familiar?"
"Rhine? Rhinelanders? Yes, my grandfather's father's father was a Rhinelander. He moved his family north to the Winterlands when the wizards came."
"Wizards?"
"Yes. They came to his village carrying golden crosses. He was told to bow down before their evil god and pay homage to him, but he, like many others, refused. The wizards summoned armies from the south and burned down the village. My grandfather's father's father fled north to escape. They settled a new village in the Winterlands."
"So you continued speaking German without any Norse influence even this far north?"
"Norse? I think you speak of the other tribes near our village. They do speak another language, though I never learned it. Our village does not trust outsiders. We will trade with them, but do not allow them to stay. Fortunately, the wizards go no where without the banner of their god. We have killed many of the grand wizard Haakon's soldiers miles before they arrived."
"Wait," Doc thinks, remembering his European history. "King Haakon? Haakon the Good?"
"Ha! Is that how he is known among your people? To us, he is Haakon the Wizard.
"Haakon the Good. Hah. Time remembers fondly those who destroy their enemies."
"Boy, you said somethin' there," Mark says.
"But, he ruled a hundred years before your time," Doc continues.
"Yes. He never died. He is a wizard. Look, there is one of his temples, now!" Thunderhorse smashes his face into the window.
They drive past the Nidaros Cathedral.
"That's not a temple, ya' savage. That's a fuckin' church!" Mark chastises the viking. "Wizards, hell, are you talkin' about Christians? What kinda stupid fuckin'-"
Doc shuts him up with a look.
"I know this place," Thunderhorse says, face pressed firmly against the glass. "I know this place!" he shouts.
Doc pulls over and they all get out of the car to admire the scenery. It's quite a nice Gothic cathedral, although it's been a Lutheran church for hundreds of years.
"The way the river bends here. I know this. This is Nidaros! This is the site where the Great King Harald III was brought after he fell battling the Saxons! My village and Nathan's tower will be to the north of here."
"Who is this Nathan, anyway?"
"Nathan the Pickled. He calls himself King of these lands. Our village do not recognize him. He is just another acolyte of the ancient wizard Haakon. Neither do we recognize Harald's son Olaf, for he surrendered to the Saxons. We claim no king."
Doc checks his sunglasses, doing a quick internet search. "There doesn't seem to be any record of him."
"Hah. Then if time remembers only the victors, that means we shall be victorious this day."
Doc smiles at this. He checks the clock. One hour to go.
Ready To Rock
Doc and the Time Operatives spend the next few hours getting ready. There is much shuffling of equipment. They load Doc's jeep with weapons and materials from their previous missions, pull the old Flintlocks off the Pu, clean out Lightning's old saddlebags, etc.
Doc makes a command decision to leave the Sleipnirs behind on this mission. Even with eight legs, they won't be keeping up with his jeep, and it's best to keep everyone together. Thunderhorse is quite upset about this, but Doc manages to convince him it's for the best. Thunderhorse is the only one who's been able to ride them so far, and even to him it's a shaky proposal to simply gallop around on one let alone charge into battle.
After taking stock of the equipment at hand, Doc tries his hand at the giant gumball machine that is the replicator. Once again, the thing fails to produce anything worthwhile for him. Upon asking for a "machine gun" he got a toy replica, and "rocket launcher" was somehow misinterpreted as a package of Jolly Ranchers.
Fortunately, Veronica had built up some sway over the device through the course of the centuries. She is able to convince it to make a World War 2 era Browning .50 caliber machine gun and a 21st century SMAW rocket launcher, ammo and all.
Unfortunately, the bloody thing gets confused while processing the purchase and ends up charging Doc's personal account rather than the mission budget to the tune of $40,000.
Rightly pissed, Doc takes a quick nap. He clears his mind of rage against the machine and fills it with the comfort of having a signifigant arsenal. His nap is somewhat restless and his dreams filled with visions of guns and swords, but he sleeps well enough to clear the cobwebs from his brain and ready himself for the mission.
After an hour, the alarm goes off and he's up and ready. He gathers Mark and Thunderhorse from the galley and they march down the hallway. They ride the elevator silently to the shuttle bay, where Veronica and Steve await them outside the open maw of the Pu.
Steve approaches Doc. "Here," he says, handing him the ticking time-bomb.
Doc examines the small, inocuous thing. Three hours until it goes off.
"Take a spare, just in case. If you get into trouble you can escape to some other time." Steve produces another one from his lab coat pocket and hands it over. "And take this, as well." It's a small, black disk with a blinking red light on top. "It's a temporal tracking signal. If you don't end up when you're supposed to, I'll be able to find you. Don't worry, though. I've been through the calculations a hundred times."
"Thanks," Doc says, slightly less confident than he was a moment ago.
"I'll be right behind you, no matter what. Well, above you, I guess. At least in orbit around the same planet you're on. Unless there's some kind of gravitational distortion storm between now and the target time, in which case you'll be flung into the abyss of space. But the probability of that happening is so remote as to be unlikely. I'd say its 1 in-"
"Shut up, Steve." Doc says calmly, desperately retaining his confidence.
"Right. Sorry. Good luck."
The Time Operatives board the Pu. The ramp swallows them up. The shuttle bay begins to hum as the engines fire up. Warning klaxons and lights flood the bay. The magnetic couplings disconnect with a hiss, and the Pu falls away from the mother ship towards the Earth.
The ride down is as comfortable as can be, certainly more comfortable than the ride up on the Yeti. Doc is beginning to get used to the queasiness of space travel. Even the ride on a fireball as the Pu screams into the atmosphere disturbs him less than it used to.
It's a very quick trip as they've dropped to Earth at just the right time. Within moments, they're landing in Trondheim, Norway.
New Method of Time Travel
Click for animation because Blogger won't show it on the page, the fuckers.
"Great! We can travel through time and not get our ass shot off again?" Doc asks.
"I guess it depends on whether or not you're being shot at, but yes, we can travel through time." Dr. Ritenrong's enthusiasm continues uninterrupted.
He calls an electronic whiteboard down from the ceiling and begins drawing on it using his fingers.
"Now, we all know that an object such as a cup has a time-line with a beginning, middle, and end. It exists until it is destroyed. When we place our wormhole in it at any point on that time-line, the wormhole also exists from the beginning to the end, where the wormhole dissipates and is also destroyed. The wormhole connects all points of its time-line to the point opposite the zenith.
"Lets say we have another cup with a wormhole in it. We can insert it into the first wormhole, wait a while, and watch it arrive at the opposite end of the first time-line. If we then send it back through the wormhole, it will travel back through time, arriving before we put it in. We have now crossed a higher dimensional boundary, and altered the course of history. Now, the fun bit. If we put the cup that arrived from our first cup into the cup we just made before we send it into the first cup, what happens? Does the blue cup any longer have a beginning or end? Does it end where it begins? Yet there is a wormhole within this cup which spans both time and higher dimensional space. What happens if we step into that wormhole?"
He clears the board with a wave of his hand and continues. "Now, the blue cup, and the wormhole within it, do in fact have a time-line. It is created by us, it has a midpoint, and it's existence 'ends' with the recursion process we set into motion. However, it's temporal field is inverted! The beginning of the inverted time-line will send us back in time, and the end will send us forward, outside the existence wave of the cup! The closer we get to the middle, the further back or forth it will fling us! An interesting thing happens at the zenith, though. It leads to both the beginning and end of the universe, or perhaps just the localized galactic time-line, simultaneously. If we were to enter near the zenith, we may be flung to either end of time, or simply thrown outside of existence altogether. Or it may have already happened and the result was the big bang. I don't know."
He clears the board again, and with a series of gestures brings the previous drawing back.
"There is one other thing. The inverted time-line of the blue cup is spread out back and forth across the relative time-line of the black cup. It begins by disappearing into the future where it exists briefly before being sent back before it started, and then loops around. The start of it is in the future and vice-versa, so going in earlier will take us to the future, and going in later will take us to the past. So if we move the creation of the second wormhole and its nearly instantaneous insertion into the primary wormhole closer to the zenith of the primary, we can allow it to extend throughout the lifecycle of the primary wormhole before inverting it. This gives us plenty of time to more finely calculate and control our destination!"
He brings out a small plastic ball from his lab coat pocket. "For the last couple weeks, I've been working on this for months." He shows it to Doc and Veronica at the bar. Mark looks over his shoulder. Thunderhorse is distracted by the magic of the whiteboard.
The small sphere is split in two halves. One side is blue and has little finger friction ridges along the edge and a button at the top. The reverse side is white with blue micro-LEDs displaying the current date and time.
"The blue side is the dial and activation button. Turn it slow to change seconds and minutes, faster to change hours, days, and years. Clockwise is forward, counterclockwise is backwards, of course." He spins the blue side to demonstrate. The time display on the reverse side changes colors from blue to red as the clock goes further into the future, and then from red to blue to green as it goes back into the past.
"Press the button to set it." He does. The clock is set for 1068.
"Now it will take some time for it to prime. The further back or forth you want to go, the more fine control I need to calculate the destination position and the longer it takes. There is an emergency override if you have to get out of a situation quickly, but this is HIGHLY unpredictable. You will almost certainly not end up where you wanted to go. But if you must use it, just turn the dial clockwise and press the button repeatedly. I had to balance between safety of travel versus emergency response, so it won't always react instantly. What good is escaping a firefight only to be flung into fires of the primordial solar system? Anyway, only use it in extreme situations.
"Once it's primed, you can use the dial counterclockwise to delay the response if you want. The longer you give it, the more accurate the results, although the default time should be accurate enough. After about half the time has passed, you can't set it any further ahead, though. When these little lights travel the circumference, it will detonate."
"Detonate?" Mark asks, intrigued by explosions.
"Yes, detonate. These are one-time use devices. The blast won't hurt you. It will expand to fill a confined space up to about 8000 cubic feet, so I recommend using it in small, empty rooms. You can use it outdoors, but it will take everything around you with it. Don't worry, you will arrive in the same gravitationally relative space regardless of the continuity of the structure you use it in, although I can't guarantee results for weak or fluctuating gravitational fields. So wear a space suit if you're using it on an asteroid or something.
"Another word of warning. These things contain a small amount of anti-matter, which is used up harmlessly in the reaction. If the containment is breached, however, you have a problem which can be measured in megatons. It also contains a micro-radiothermal generator for powering the internal components. This can't go critical (by its self, anyway), but those componets will cause radiation burns or sickness if handled. If the core is exposed or goes offline, the antimatter containment will fail and you've got one of those megaton problems. The skin is made of nano-engineered titanim-carbon composites and will take exactly one hell of a beating. Do not push your luck."
"Is it possible to set it off on purpose?" Mark asks, excitedly.
"No, simply because I can't imagine any situation in which a thermonuclear hand-grenade might be useful."
"I see you've set the thing for 1068," Doc remarks. "That's Thunderhorse's era, isn't it?"
Thunderhorse quits doodling on Dr. Ritenrong's whiteboard at the sound of his name.
"Yes, it is," Steve replies. "Since he damn near got killed saving my life, I think we should do as you suggested, Doc. We're going to save Jazelle."
"PRAISE THOR!" Cries Thunderhorse. He pounds his fists on the whiteboard, shattering the digital image. The screen, unharmed, retracts into the ceiling.
"I'll set the timer ahead to twelve hours. That should be plenty of time for you to get ready and head to the surface."
"You're staying here, right?" Doc says. "If we lose you, we're fucked. You know that, right?"
"Yes, Doc, I'm staying here on the Pear." He answers. "But, I'll be taking the Pear back in time through traditional means and I'll be in orbit when you arrive in the past. Veronica, I'll need you to drop them off on Earth then help me navigate through the asteroid field. I've got the course already plotted."
"Yee haw! We're headed back to olden times? Like knights and stuff?" Mark says. "Can we bring our laser rifles?"
"And the Sleipnirs! I will ride an eight legged horse into battle!" Thunderhorse cries.
"As long as I can bring my Colt and my Jeep, I'm happy. I'm not riding through anyplace called 'The Winterlands' on horseback, eight-legged or otherwise."
"Sure, whatever. Just don't totally unravel the fabric of history, okay?"
As the World Turns Above Us...
Three weeks pass too easily on the Younger Brother Pear. Their orbit brings night and day every six hours or so. It feels as though they're travelling through time without Dr. Ritenrong's contraptions.
Thunderhorse spends his days with the Sleipnirs, getting to know them and letting them know him. He spends the rest of his time drinking in front of the TV making his way slowly through the infinite playlist of a hacked Q-NetPix account. Doc tries to steer him towards the greats and the classics, but more often than not it's Red Sonja, The Arena, Albert Pyun's Nemesis series, or anything else involving muscular women warriors.
Mark spends most of his time reading and playing Shoot Out! in the holobooths. He and Thunderhorse occassionaly hold Sleipnir races around the Obersvation deck, but the last time they did Mark got bucked off into the pond. Doc is glad that Thunderhorse holds domain over the television more than Mark, since when Mark puts something on it's usually the most grotesque, demented pornography he can find. He thinks it's hilarious, while everone else wants to puke.
Doc also finds himself lost in the holobooths for hours at a time, practicing his surgical skills and playing a game of world domination and politics called Riskopoly against people from across time and space, all brought together by Q-Net. He's particularly proud of the moment when he defeated both Napolean and Abraham Lincoln in a battle to control the oil and medicinal resources of South America whilst making a highly skewed trade agreement with Raboid615 (an Ursine alien from the moons of Epsilon Eridani Beta who is not a very shrewd negotioator) for control of European mining, leading Doc to total domination of virtual 22nd century Earth within 36 rounds of play. To be fair, who ever was personafying Lincoln was not doing a very good job and Napoleans are in general very easy to goad into making poor decisions. Still it stands on record as the sixth quickest and thirteenth most dominating victory on the high-score boards.
Steve, meanwhile, has been working diligently in isolation, trying to perfect a more useful time-device. He comes into the galley for dinner and tries to be conversational in attempting to explain his day's problems and achievements, but instead spews out reams of technobabble which makes sense to no one but himself. The best Doc can make out is "it's coming along."
The only people who can be seen doing any actual work around the ship are the androids. The Cook and Host of course do most of the actual day-to-day stuff, the Host having taken over the duties of the now transformed Maid.
Veronica had done a lot of work before she left to join the EDF. The once mangled and tattered EGU shuttle is now good-as-new, perhaps better. Doc's jeep is running better than ever, as she had torn its engine completely apart, cleaned it, and rebuilt it. She did this one or twice a century to keep it in good condition through Doc's three-hundred year absence. She told Doc that at first she wanted to replace the engine with a fusion generator and make it an electric, but not having the parts she had to wait until the technology came to be on Earth. By then she had grown fond of its simple internal combustion system and decided to leave it alone.
Veronica stops in only briefly between EDF missions. She was not particularly happy to see them the first time. She landed her SF-112 Starfire, the Maria Bochkareva, in the shuttle bay with an attitude only she could display while flying. She stormed up the to the galley to tell them all off about beaming transissions at her while she's on a mission. Apparently, the Host's attempts to contact her in the Neptunian system scarred off the Exkorean pirates they were trying to hunt down. Fortunately, the signal did not give away her position, but it did alert the pirates to the fact that someone was out there after them. Their sudden attempted escape and the ensuing chase threw off the mission timeline by a factor of hours and, as she put it, "cost the Earth taxpayers thousands of dollars in wasted time and ammunition."
Once that was off her chest she was quite pleasant. To Doc and Steve, at least.
After a quick break she was off again to help sweep the asteroid fields of the remaining Exkorean ships. Although the Sol Peace Treaty of 2177 had the Exkoreans promising to leave Mars and the Solar System forever by 2185, many Exkorean outposts still remained. They are not more than pirates and raiders now, but they still swear loyalty to their fallen empire. It's Veronica's job to wipe them out whenever they interfere with commercial shipping and transport. Civilians are, for the most part, on their own.
After a tough week of flying, Veronica slumps into a stool in the galley, slamming her helmet on the bar. She's still wet with synthetic perspiration. She peels her flight suit loose from her chest, unzipping it slightly and airing it out.
"Fucking pricks," she mutters loudly.
"Welcome home," Doc greets her, lifting his beer glass to her before taking a sip.
The Cook provides her with a frosty mug of Android Replenishment Fluid which is a mix of coolants, hydrolic fluids, ethanol, bio-corrosive acids, and specially laced with a ferromagnetic substance which scrambles her circuits in a delightfully intoxicating way. It's great for clearing the volitile memory, although it does tend to interfere with active programs such as speech macros and stabilization systems.
She lifts her glass in return and drinks down the blackish-green substance with ease. Two weeks ago Doc had to pump Thunderhorse's stomach because he had stolen a mere sip from her glass. The chemistry designed to remove foreign biological materials from her system had given the viking a rather severe ulcer. Doc, always looking for practice in his medical art, cloned him a new stomach. He went ahead and replaced his liver, too. It was the most sad and abused thing he'd ever seen inside a human body. It's preserved in a jar on his office desk to remind himself to go easy on the sauce.
"That dickhead Major Kwong still won't listen to me. I've told them a hundred times that the Exkorean base is near Ceres. But they won't listen. They won't scan. He tells me 'There's no reports of Exkor activity from Ceres,' but that's because they're hiding! It's a hidden base. He goes 'Well how do you know about it then?' and what do I tell him? That my real boss is a time-traveler in violation of a hundred-year-old treaty but he's got all kinds of useful information on the future and oh, yeah I'm an android more advanced than anything you'll see for another century at least?"
"I can see how that can frustrate your day," Doc answers sympathetically. "Can we scan them from here?"
"No, I tried. The asteroid field is too difficult to scan through and besides, they're cloaking their emissions. You have to send probes to do a sub-surface scan of every asteroid near Ceres, but without EDF support they just get shot down by the Exkors before they could return confirmation. I'm not wasting any more probes on other people's problems. Let 'em ffffffindout the hard wayeeee-" She ends the sentence with a rough digital burp, much like a failing DTV signal. She pats her chest and smiles, letting Doc know she's alright.
A few more drinks and some casual conversation later, they sit quietly together, watching the sun rise on the monitor.
"I never get tired of seeing that," Doc says.
They both turn as they hear something odd. The elevator door opens in the hallway, releasing a merry yell. They hear footsteps pounding around the corner, interrupted by a brief pause and a sudden thump intermixed with a jubilant shouting, something that could only have been a jump for joy.
"I've done it!" Dr. Ritenrong comes screaming into the galley, followed curiously by Mark and Thunderhorse whose body-builder porn he had interrupted. "I've actually done it!"
"What?" Doc asks.
"A new method of time-travel!"
Confessions
"There's something I've got to tell you," says Dr. Ritenrong.
"Yes?" Doc looks up from the glass of 300 year old Chananna brandy the Host and Cook had thought to make in anticipation of their future arrival.
In the distance, the Sleipnirs dance a with a viking around the crystal pond beneath the orbiting Earth as the sun and moon rise.
"I caused the destruction of the galaxy."
Doc looks at Steve solemnly, as if the wind had just changed for the worse.
"It was the XD Drive. I stole the idea from Dmitri Valia. He was supposed to come up with the idea that neutrinos were just mathematical shadows of extradimensional high energy particles, and that by utilizing gamma reflectors and manuseisium electromagnetic-gravitational converters one can vector the full thrust of an antimatter reaction and accelerate a ship instantly faster than light. He was his era's Tesla, and I was his Edison.
"When I gave myself the power of time travel, I started a paradox that is going to destroy us all. But it won't happen all at once, just through a series of causal catastrophes that lead inevitably towards armageddon. The first thing I did with the power to time-travel was jump ahead to see the future. I took inventions refined from Dmitri Valias ideas back only ten years and held them up as my own. It brought me fortune and glory, but humans lept into the universe faster than they should have. That shortcut of only a decade slashed the continued existance of our galaxy from billions of years to a handful of centuries, and it gave extraordinary power to people like Admiral Spaaz.
"I've tried my best to undo what I've done, but it's like trying to influence a Pachinko game to get the ball into the one slot that won't trigger nuclear armageddon with my mind. And I'm the one who dropped the ball.
"I'm a poor scientist. I'm a thief. Hell, I stole my only true invention from myself. I was given power and the first thing I did was misuse it, and the rest of the galaxy will suffer the consequences. I know it wasn't me, or this iteration of me who did the actual deed, but I can't say that I would've done it differently were I in the same position as the version of me who was.
"You saved my life, though. I was supposed to die on that ship. I wouldn't have been able to escape again, to tell myself of the plight of the future. I would not have made it to that cave where all my other bodies lie, where the history of a hundred failed futures is carved on the wall. I would not have been able to add my own failed future to it, and I certainly would not have been able to write the one that succeeded.
"I don't think, now, that we can stop the destruction of the galaxy directly. Every time I do, it seems to bring a more powerful ship with a bigger, more powerful XD engine into the grasp of that insideous beast. It's like that being, or force, or whatever it's pan-dimensional name is- has control over me, and that by doing what I think is right, I'm only bringing it what it needs. It's as if the paradox its self is intelligent, omnipotent, and malevolent."
One of the eight legged horses, the foal, breaks away from the pack and approaches cautiously, looking for food. Steve extends a handful of dried insects, locust-cockroach crossbreeds designed to maintain a specific link in the food chain of this artificial paradise. The young horse strobes bright greens and blues as it munches merrily on the snack.
The viking comes to join them, sweating from the joy of playing with his new found companions. "So when will we meet Odin?"
Take a Break
Thanks to Doc's incredible (-ly lucky) surgical skill and the amazing tools at hand in the Younger Brother Pear's medical bay, Steve's recovery is quick and relatively painless. Fortunately for him, the reactive gel in his armor worked well enough to slow the .50 caliber bullet fragments down before it failed, doing not much more internal damage than bird-shot. He was also incredibly lucky, for if the shot had been a few microns to the left, Steve would no longer have his origional heart.
After a good, long nap, Doc is able to treat the rest of the crew's bumps and bruises. Thunderhorse caught the second worst of the three of them when he ran out into the hail of gunfire to save Dr. Ritenrong. Almost his whole body was black and blue.
Doc's own body is well beaten. His jumpsuit peels off like a giant band-aid as it tears at the blisters and bruises left behind every bullet it stopped. It definitely could've been a lot worse, and he is impressed by the stopping power the reactive gel has.
Steve is out like a light and will be for a day or so. Doc makes sure of that by sealing him in the stasis bed and pumping the contained atmosphere full of drugs. It is a cocktail of gasses designed to regulate his metabolism in such a way that he stays asleep and focuses every available calorie on repairing his damaged tissues.
When he finally makes it out of the Medical bay, Doc heads straight for the galley, where the Host and the Cook greet him kindly, as if they'd seen him just yesterday, even though it's been more than three hundred years since they last laid eyes on him. Mark and Thunderhorse are enjoying a meal and several large drinks. Doc has what they're having.
The next morning, Steve is up and about, looking groggy but none the worse for wear.
"Uh," he groans as he approaches the bar where Doc is enjoying a hot coffee and his MAD magazine. "My head is killing me."
"At least it isn't bullets killing you, anymore," Doc replies.
Steve looks concerned. "Is that what happened? Was I shot?"
"Yeah, you were shot pretty good. That gel armor is something else, though. I'd have written off anyone hit by a .50 caliber bullet otherwise."
"I see we're on the Pear again. What happened? Are we still docked to the Marriott? I'm guessing 'no' by your relaxed nature."
"'No' is correct. When you went down, Thunderhorse went out and grabbed you. He took quite a bruising carrying you back. You were bleeding pretty badly, and I couldn't keep you stabilized in that situation, so we jumped in the teacup."
"The teacup from the Marriott room? Where and when are we now?"
"June 17th, 2194. Currently in Earth Orbit."
"Any word from Veronica?"
"Not yet. Didn't she say she did- er... is doing mercenary work for the Earth Defense Forces?"
"Something like that,"
"You are correct, sirs," The Host chimes in. "Ms. Autopilot is currently in Neptunian orbit on a mission for the EDF. I am unaware of the details, however she did say she would be back by tomorrow, barring any unforeseen developments."
"Has she been keeping in contact?" Steve asks.
"She does not carry a quantum uplink on her personal transport, however she almost always returns precisely when she specifies, and always sends a message if she will be delayed. I notified her of your arrival via encrypted microwave channels. She has yet to reply, even given the eight hour response delay. It is entirely possible, however, that the parameters of her mission include maintaining radio silence. "
"Thank you, Host." Steve replies. "How's the ship holding up?"
"Very well, sir. Without organics on board, the ships systems suffered very little wear and tear. All non-vital systems were deactivated, and life support was lowered to its minimum power settings. The Observation deck has been well maintained by both myself and Ms. Autopilot. There is one incident to report."
"Yes?"
"A decade or so after your departure, the observation deck's magnetic shielding was overwhelmed by a particularly strong solar storm. The Gobbits and Chizards fared well as their genetically improved radiation resistance prevented any harm from the effects. However, the horses you brought on board-"
"Holy shit, I forgot about the horses!" Doc says. "Are they okay? I mean, uh, are they even alive? After three hundred-sixty years?"
"In a sense, sir. As I was saying, the solar storm made all three of the adults terminally ill. Fortunately, they had already mated. The large one, the female called Lightning, was pregnant at the time of the incident. She died shortly after birthing the colt. The colt survived, and she and her siblings continued the population. However, due to the inbreeding and the effects of the intense solar radiation on the prenatal tissues, their genetic structure can no longer be classified under Equus caballus. Ms. Autopilot proposed the species Equus Levitas in honor of their late matriarch."
Steve is slightly surprised and concerned about this new information. "Are you saying...?"
Doc, to, is puzzled. He interrupts Steve. "Um, what kind of 'effects' are we talking about?"
"The first prominent feature to appear, starting with the colt, was supernumeral limbs."
"Supernumeral? How many is that?"
"Four. All functional."
"Four functional, supernumeral limbs."
"Yes, sir."
"An eight-legged horse. It started with an eight-legged horse."
"Yes, sir."
Doc sits back in his chair, preparing himself to take this all in. "I see. Go on."
"In subsequent generations there was a simple persistence of albinism and pigmentation loss. Further generations exhibited a slight translucency of hair, skin and internal tissues, which became more pronounced as the population continued."
"How much more pronounced?"
"At one point, they were very difficult to see in spectra greater than infra-red at distances of at least 20 meters."
"Eight legged, invisible horses. At one point. I take it that's not all?"
"No, sir. A generation after that, the species developed chromataphoric structures in their skin cells, however they still retained their translucent base."
"Chromataphors?" Steve asks. "You mean like octopuses have to change colors?"
"Octopi, sir. And yes, sir, that is exactly what I mean. Their natural reflexes towards camouflage make them nearly impossible to spot without thermal sensing when they are frightened, as the are with me. Fortunately, they 'like' Ms. Autopilot, and they tend to change colors when expressing moods, pleasure being one of the most dramatic."
"So, an eight-legged, invisible, color-changing horse? Is that it?" Doc asks, pretending to comprehend it all.
"Yes, sir. One really must see it to understand the full effect."
"Yes, I expect so," replies Steve, quietly astounded.
"The rapidity of the genetic mutations was quite remarkable, although early on the rate of infant deaths and debilitating mutations was quite high. It took only about fifty generations to reach their current state, and they've been stable since then. The seventieth generation was born only last month. We currently have a population of eight: three stallions, four mares, and one male colt, all in good health. Ms. Autopilot preserved a genetic sample of each individual, if you care to study them in detail."
"Have you explained this to Thunderhorse?" Doc asks, concerned.
"I tried, but Mr. Thunderhorse did not react well when I told him his favorite, Lightning, had passed away over three hundred years ago. He ran off to find her and prove me wrong. If you'll forgive me, sir, I don't think he quite has a grasp on the occupational consequences of being a Time Operative."
"No, we know." Steve says. "Thanks for trying."
Psychic Lemon Juice and Emergency Surgery
"This man has been injured! Call the paramedics and bring me your first aid kit, I'm a doctor!"
The foreman doesn't take much convincing. Someone is already on their way with a woefully inadequate medkit. Doc tears it open to see what he can do with it. Steve is going to require surgery, and this pile of bandages, burn patches, and aspirin is not going to get the job done. At least it's enough to change the bandages and disinfect the wound some.
"You didn't answer my question, doctor. What are you doing in my oven?"
Doc is considering how best to answer this question when he is distracted by a flashing signal in his HUD sunglasses.
Q-NET Uplink detected. Connecting... Established. Welcome to Q-NET!
Doc doesn't know much about computers, but he knows what this means.
"The Pear is in Orbit!" he shouts out. "Veronica?" he calls. There's no response. "Veronica?"
The foreman looks at him funny. He turns to one of his workers. "Call an ambulance. And the police."
"Hold up, there, Jose," calls Mark, leveling his assault rifle at the man. "I don't think ya' oughta be callin' no police."
"Mark!" Doc yells. "Put it down!" He turns to the foreman. "Look, sir. I'm sorry we interrupted your production line, but we've got a serious situation here and I have no time to explain."
Doc removes his sunglasses and looks deeply into his eyes. He's an overworked sort, trying to achieve something worthwhile from this dead-end job. He's been on the rocks lately, heavy drinking involved, something dissatisfying at home, etc. This big contract with StarScape Voyages to make teacups for the Marriott was going to help him out financially and emotionally, but it all now looks to be in ruins.
Doc forces his will further into the man's mind. He finds a soft spot- his mother's death. Something about the blood and guns opens up this grand old wound. Doc tears it further and throws on some psychic lemon juice.
"We're being hunted," he says. "You can't call the cops or we're dead, understand? I need to get my friend to a safe place or he will die. I want nothing more than to be out of your hair, but I need your help to do that. I need a ship that can get me into orbit."
"There's no way I can do that," replies the forman.
Doc knows he's asking a lot, so he presses hard on the sympathy button. "Please. You have the chance to save a life here, a chance you never had before. Please, help us."
The man begins to well up with tears.
"We'll be out of here and you can get your machines back on and you can get your life back in order."
"Yes," the forman chokes. "Jesus!" he calls. One of the workers steps forward.
"Yes, sir?" The sunglasses needlessly translate for Doc.
"Bring a cargo lift out front. Yeti 9 should be available. Get them the hell out of here."
The other workers look at their foreman in total shock. They've never seen this side of the man before.
"Yes, sir," the sunglasses again translate. Jesus runs off, grabbing a keycard from a chain on the wall on the way out the back door.
Doc continues to hold pressure on Steve's wounds. Within a minute, he hears the whining sound of a fusion engine spinning up. Thunderhorse and Mark lift Steve while Doc maintains pressure on the bleeding hole in his back. They carry Steve out the fire exit, held open by the foreman.
The Yeti is a simple conical craft not much more than an engine and a cockpit. The nose of the cone can extend (and is currently retracting), revealing a superstructure that can hold six of the trapezoidal cargo containers seen all over this industrial area. As the nose finally fits its self into place.
Jesus opens the hatch. There isn't much room since the Yetti was only designed for two crew members. The cockpit takes up half of the cone, with only two seats. Behind it, in the other half, is a small sleeping and dining area. The table doubles as a bed, and only one person can really occupy it at a time.
Mark and Thunderhorse place Steve gently on the table. Doc, still holding the wound, takes a seat on the bench around the table. Thunderhorse sits next to him. Mark climbs into the co-pilot seat next to Jesus.
"Hold on to your hats, amigos," warns Jesus. They can feel the primary thrusters building up underneath them. The ship rocks and vibrates a moment. It begins to lift and gain momentum. Soon their ears are popping and their breath is stolen. The cabin pressurizes its self unsteadily. There's a hissing, leaking sound.
Soon, they feel that familiar sensation of their stomachs trying to escape through their mouthes as the ship's acceleration dies off and they find themselves in freefall. The hissing leak gets louder.
"What's that sound?" asks Doc.
"There's a small hole in the hull somewhere. It needs fixed."
Doc looks at their driver incredulously. It's then that he notices the web-work of duct tape all over the interior of the ship. There are several red lights blinking on the dash, each poorly covered in electrical tape so as not to distract the driver. Loose wires hold on to the reminants of a speaker assembly, what was once the alarm buzzer.
"So, where you heading, amigos?" Jesus asks.
---
It takes a while, but they arrive at the Younger Brother Pear in orbit somewhere over the Pacific. It's fully intact with the Pu docked. Doc tries to raise Veronica again to no avail. Fortunately, Steve had programmed some of the control codes for the Pear into their sunglasses. On Doc's authority, the cargo bay at the bottom of the ship opens up. The small Yeti fits easily inside.
"Wow, man, this is nice," says Jesus as he opens the hatch. The Time Operatives and their wounded employer scramble out of the transport.
"Thanks for the lift," Doc says as they exit the Yeti. Thunderhorse and Mark carry Steve to the elevator, Doc still holding the bleeding wound tight. He barely has time to feel relieved to be back on the Pear.
They rush Steve up to the medical bay and get him in one of the beds. Doc was an emergency medic in the army, not a trained surgeon. It's been a long time since he's done anything like this.
Doc takes his time. With these beds and equipment, he can afford to. The bed can keep Steve in stasis if something goes wrong. The Clone-o-mat can make replacement parts if necessary. The pharmacuticals available can slow Steve's heart rate to almost nill without killing him.
Doc has to break ribs to gain access to all the bullet fragments. He has to vacuum out all the bits of blue gel from Steve's failed armor. He has to clone Steve some new artery and lung pieces, remove the torn, useless parts, and install the fresh ones. He has to glue the broken bones back together. This is actually made very easy by the bone glue, a substance which stiches the bones together quickly and strongly without the need for screws, metal, or even plaster casts.
The procedure takes almost seven hours. After he cuts the final thread of stitching, applies the antibacterial super-glue salve, and slaps on a bandage, he slumps into the nearest bed and promptly falls asleep.
Down the Rabbit Hole
The footsteps of the approaching pirate attack forces grow louder, snapping Doc out of his near trance-like state.
"Thunderhorse!" He shouts. "Get the teacup out of your pack, and take Steve through! I'll cover you" He turns to Mark, who is on the other side of the open entrance to the FastTrack station. "Mark! Get over here! Cover Thunderhorse"
m
More armored transports carrying even more heavily armed pirate troops arrive and begin to unload.
Thunderhorse quickly retrieves the teacup from their hotel room out of his backpack and places it on the ground. He takes over for Doc, putting pressure on Steve's bleeding wound. He hefts the dying scientist onto his shoulder. Then, in a sight more ridiculous than can be easily described, the giant viking carrying a mad scientist hops into a teacup and disappears.
Mark waits for a break in the enemy fire to dash across the open entrance. He opens automatic fire on the approaching pirate troops as he runs. Most of them duck out of the way of the eye scorching, ear ringing rain of violence, but one of them catches a bolt of death right between the ears, leaving nothing but a cauterized hole where his face used to be.
The pirates regroup and raise their guns to return fire, but Mark dives into the teacup before the bullets start flying.
Meanwhile, Doc is fiddling with a timed detonator he grabbed from Steve's pocket. The bullets from the pirate's assault rifles start pelting his armor. It stiffens up, but the ionized led pounds against his arm and back hard. He can feel the bruises forming.
It's almost more than he can take. At last Doc gets the timer set for ten seconds. He slaps it to the side of the cup and jumps in head first.
The noise of gunfire and the rioters of the train station on the IDS Marseilles Marriott shrinks away and the world around him fades to black, if only for a moment. Soon a new reality grows into view. It is a reality filled with teacups.
At first it seems that Doc has somehow slipped into a dimension made entirely of teacups and red light. As he slides out of the wormhole, a new noise grows into his ears. It's an alarm. The world of teacups grows larger and becomes reality. Suddenly, Doc is amongst all the teacups, surrounded by them. It's very, very hot in here. The alarm is joined by the wild claning and smashing of teacups as they give way to his sudden presense.
A new sound, the rushing of air, instantly and mercifully coincide with a lowering of temperature and a the light turning from red to black. Doc finds himself in a confined space on some strange kind of surface, proving that there is more to this bizzarro dimenstion than teacups. It is cold rough, and hard. It feels like some kind of metal mesh.
The darkness he how finds himself in reveals a light at one end of this tight tunnel. He uses the walls and ceiling of this cave to push himself along the rough surface, which seems to move with him with a grinding whir. He arrives into the light, where the buzzing alarm is blaring loudly.
Three people in hardhats are standing around him, staring incredulously. He's on a conveyor belt. Suddenly he feels a blunt impact on his groin and feels a muffled cry from between his legs. It's Mark's head.
Doc finishes climbing out of the tunnel. Mark is right behind him, cursing and spitting.
"God Damnit! Where the fuck are we?"
There's a loud bang and wailing as Thunderhorse get's jammed in the tight space of the tunnel. Mark and Doc grab the foot they can reach and pull. Thuderehorse emerges, holding Steve by the legs.
Doc rushes to Steve and pulls him further along the conveyor. He flips him over and puts pressure back on the bleeding gunshot wound.
"Where is this cursed place?" asks Thunderhorse, as he gathers his bearings.
Doc looks around a bit. It's a large, enclosed space filled with machinery and gawking workers. There are thousands of identical teacups lining the conveyor belt before them. "I think we're in the cup factory."
"I thought we'd end up back in the hotel room," says Mark.
"So did I," Doc replies. He checks his sunglasses for their position in space and time. They're in Mexico City. It's 1:13 pm on June 16th, 2194. Five years before the battle on the Marriott.
Someone cancels the alarm. A foreman marches angrily towards them. "What the hell is going on over here?!" He yells in a thick Indian accent. "What are you doing in my curing oven?!" He notices Steve. "What happened to him? Why is he bleeding all over my production line?!"
