Portugal

"Portugal!" Doc yells, the glare of the computer monitor lighting his eyes with a gleeful glow.

The Younger Brother Pear hangs quietly in the night sky 15 days from Earth, their progress halted. Veronica had picked up transmissions from German satellites apparently directing orbital traffic. It's only 1941 and the Germans have an operational space program geared for warfare.

If the Nazi propaganda broadcasts are to be believed, the war is all but over. London and Paris have long since fallen, while the Nordic Alliance barely continue to fend off the looming German invasion of North America. Meanwhile, the Japanese have already landed in California and the Russian population is eating a million tons of high explosives every day from both sides.

Even though the Maria Bochkareva outclasses the German orbital bombers in every conceivable fashion, and not mentioning their total lack of escorts, Veronica has stopped the Pear from heading into the firefight. One stray surface-to-orbit missile could easily rupture the Pear's hull if struck, and even Veronica can't shoot down everything the Germans could potentially throw at them.

Weeks have gone by. The situation on Earth gets worse every day. The crew of the Pear studies and analyzes the war, looking for weak spots in any front, trying to find a source of tungsten readily available and easily retrievable. Every significant supply is being used in the war effort, and every industrial city is well protected by armored patrols and anti-aircraft weapons.

So they've waited and thought and considered and planned and argued and drank and forgiven. Until now.

"Portugal," Doc repeats.

He places an empty wine bottle on the bar before his crew-mates. Wrapped in half-rotted wickerwork, the green glass is labeled "Henriques Alantejo Burgundy" in fluid white script nearly chipped off.

"Yes, yes, I think this will do," Steve says, examining the bottle.

"What's so special about Portugal?" asks Mark.

"Wolframite. It's got tungsten in it, and Portugal has lots of it. Steve, can you refine it?"

"Yes, I think so. However, to get the amount of refined tungsten we require we'll need about 400 tons of wolframite."

"I think that's a bit more than the Jeep can haul," Doc remarks.

"No problem. We can open a wormhole into the Pear's cargo bay and you can just toss the ore back up here once you mine it."

"Yet another problem. Does anyone here know anything about mining?"

Mark speaks up. "Jes' so happens I might know a thing 'er two 'bout it. My ol' grandad used to mine iron way back in Michigan. I may'a picked a bit of it from listnen' to his stories."

"Beautiful. You're our foreman. What will we need?"

"Shovels, pickaxes, horses, wagons, explosives, timbers and rope for tresses and pulverizers. Maybe a canary 'er two."

Steve replies. "The replicator is still broken so we'll have to get what we need there. I do have a chem-sniffer so you don't need any canaries. Explosives may be more difficult to arrange depending on the era."

"When exactly does that bottle lead, Doc" Veronica asks. "What kind of fights will we be getting into?"

"Well, Afonso Henriques was the first King of Portugal, I think, so it seems only right to name a wine after him, especially if its from his home town of Alantejo. I carbon dated the wicker on the bottle and at best guess I would put its origin in the 1530s, a relatively quiet time of exploration for Portugal."

Steve chimes in. "Sounds good. If I set the timed charge on it for eight hours after you go in, you should arrive on some Renaissance glassblower's cooling rack in the middle of the night, assuming they only work in the day. You guys take off for the mountains and start throwing rocks back to the ship."

"How long is this going to take?" Doc asks.

Mark answers, "Well, that's hard t' say. Without a lot of explosives, an' three men workin' like all hell-"

"And a woman who can do as much work as ten of you," Veronica reminds him.

"Right. With all'a us workin' like hell we can pull maybe thirty or forty tons a day. That's if we got a rich vein of the stuff starin' us in the face and all we gotta do is pick it up an' pocket it."

"So, two weeks if we're lucky?" Doc asks.

"Sounds 'bout right. Hell, my pa-paw's gang could do that overnight, but we ain't got forty people. On the other hand, we do got a few a them nukular bombs what we used to dig through that asteroid left. I say we use them to tear the mountain down then pick up the pieces wearin' them EVA suits. Veronica said they protect us from solar radination. We'd be done in no time."

"That sounds ludicrously dangerous not only to ourselves but to Earth's timeline. But maybe we could hire a team," Steve says. "The ARSE isn't damaged, so we can pull some gold out of it, at least enough to get this enterprise started. What do you think, Doc?"

BATTLE

The starship Younger Brother Pear limps across the Solar System towards an alternate World War 2 era Earth. Thunderhorse the Viking and Cpt. Daniels the 1800's American militiaman dangle from umbilical cords outside the hull, spraying thermal-reflective paint on the ship as it draws slowly nearer to the sun.

Meanwhile "Doc" Shaw stands in the cargo hold face to face with a half-dozen grave robbers from ancient Imperial China.

"[We've been tricked!]" yells one of them.

"[It was a trap!]" yells another.

"[What is this place?]" asks a third.

"[I don't know!]" replies the fourth.

"[Are we dead?]" the fifth asks.

"[I don't know!]" replies the fourth again.

"[I think we're inside the vase!]" observes the sixth.

"[I think we are in hell!]" answers the first.

They turn to Doc, his face obscured by his HUD glasses and the bandanna. His hair is mussed from sweat and dust. He's holding a crowbar in his left hand.

"[Demon!]" yells the fourth thief.

The slight delay in the glasses' translation leaves Doc off guard when the thieves turn on him, despite the combat danger alarms going off. Three of them with old, rusty iron short swords charge straight for him. They all swing at him, only one catching him in the shoulder while the others trip over each other to get to him. From behind them, the other three thieves poke at him with bamboo spears, one of which has a sword tied to it like an early version of a Japanese naginata. One of the spears catches him in the side while the naginata falls on his collarbone.

"HELP!" Doc yells as he swings his crowbar at the first thief who struck him. Unfortunately, the bamboo pole poking his ribcage caused his first swing to miss, but barely. He catches him on the backhand, though, knocking the swordsman unconscious. His body limps over and disturbs his partner's swing and the jab of a spear. Without this second swordsman crowding him for space, the third gets in a good jab at Doc's arm, and the other spear gets him in the opposite side of his ribcage. The naginata takes a glancing blow off Doc's already bruised right shoulder.

One of the security drones arrives from a small panel in the central elevator shaft. "Over here!" shouts Doc as he misses a swing at the sword-wielding thief that just hit him. After a brief analysis of the situation, it fires a tranquilizing dart at the closest target, one of the spear wielders. The dart finds its target with precision, sending a sleeping agent coursing through the thief's veins. It takes effect immediately, sending the spear and its owner clamouring onto the floor.

The arrival of the strange humming machine distracts all but one of Doc's assailants; the middle swordsman who strikes him another glancing blow. The other swordsman doesn't follow through with his blow, leaving his sword to only make contact with Doc's marine jacket. The remaining spearman doesn't even jab in the right direction as he watches his partner mysteriously fall to the ground.

The leader thief with the naginata reacts, however, and slams his blade against the hovering sentry, sending it careening frictionlessly through the air to only be stopped by the wall.

Doc takes advantage of the distraction to catch one of the swordsman in the jaw with the crowbar. The thief retaliates directly and cuts him badly across the chest. The other swordsman is too busy watching the hover sentry to even swing his sword the right direction. The spearman manages only to catch the edge of Doc's jacket.

The leader thief approaches the hover sentry to finish it off. He lands another solid blow down on it's translucent domed camera-shield. But it does not go down. Instead it blasts the thief in the eyes with mace. The thief drops his weapon and covers his eyes, screaming with pain.

The second sentry bot emerges from the elevator shaft. It has already been monitoring the situation via the other bot's shared camera feeds. It fires a dart into the other spear-wielding thief as soon as it arrives. The dart hits true. His eyes roll and he sinks slowly sideways onto the hard deck plating. The first sentry attempts to fire it's dart guns, but finds the system damaged from its impact with the wall. The hypodermic dart fractures in the barrel and the liquid within spits weakly onto the floor.

The two swordsman recognize the bots as the serious threat and disengage from attacking Doc. Doc takes a parting swing at one of them, but weakened from the last blow the crowbar slips from his hand and clatters across the floor. The two swordsman jump and swing their blades at the flying robot, but the thing is too nimble for them. It slides easily through the air and out of the way.

Doc quickly fishes the switchblade from his pocket. He stands where he is, taking the opportunity to catch his shallowing breath. He instead finds himself surging with adrenaline. His brain is drowining in pain, but his army instincts take over. He steps up behind the thief that cut his chest and slips the knife between his ribs and into his kidney. The thief drops his sword and stands frozen, looking death in the face.

Meanwhile the sentries power up their cattle prods. The damaged sentry swings down on the lead thief and catches him in the back of the neck. The man screams in pain but does not fall to his knees. The second sentry, having just dodged a sword swing, extends the prod right into the face of its attacker and gives him a full dose of electricity. There is hardly a yelp as the man clenches up tight and then drops to the floor.

Meanwhile Doc's brain recovers from blackout-killer mode and finds himself holding a dying man. He quickly rips the mans ragged shirt off and starts to plug up the bleeding with it.

The final thief, tears carrying the last ounce of fear out of his body and streaming down his face, draws an elegant jade dagger from within his baggy sleeves. In a swift motion he jams the sharp blade into a seam in the hover sentry's hull. Sparks fly and smoke pours as a capacitor that controls the bot's cattle prod explodes inside the composite body. It still floats on, however, determined to stop it's target. The second sentry fires a dart at the thief, but it misses as the man moves to destroy the flying plastic demon. He stabs at it again, this time shattering the domed camera-shield.

"Stop now or you die!" Doc yells at the man, pointing his bloody switchblade at him. Unfortunately, in his excitement Doc forgot to try and translate it into Chinese. The thief ignores him completely.

The embattled sentries press the attack. All other systems damaged, the first sentry sprays mace again. This time the thief is ready for it and escapes the stream. The second sentry closes and engages with its zap prod while it primes another tranquilizer dart. The thief is too fast, though, and the attack misses.

Doc flips his switchblade up between his thumb and forefinger. Drawing his arm back, he flings the blade with practiced skill. The knife spins through the air. The thief brings his dagger back down into the sentry bot's exposed vitals, breaking open the casing and allowing the contained smoke to pour out in a burst, choking the room. Almost simultaneously the flying blade sinks into the thief's gut, missing vital organs. Caught by surprise, the thief looks towards Doc and is caught in the back of the head by the other sentry's cattle prod. He cries in pain just before he passes out onto the deck.

Steve and Jazelle emerge from the elevator just in time to witness the coup de grace. Steve looks around, observing the unconscious bodies on the floor.

"What the fuck happened here?" Steve asks, stunned.

Doc lifts his HUD glasses up and pulls the bandanna from his face, panting. "Just another day for us archeologists."

Space is Big

Really big. Doc didn't quite realize how mind bogglingly big it is. He has traveled to Saturn in hours, halfway to Alpha Centuari in days, and he once went to Miranda for a weekend alchoholiday with some mining surveyors he met after he left the service. It took the Younger Brother Pear mere minutes to reach the asteroid belt, but now, unable to use it's XD drive, it has to limp back across half the solar system.

They're still traveling faster than any man-made object for years, but it's still a three month trip. Early on it's not so bad, but with the TV busted and the holobooths inoperative boredom quickly sets in. Many hours are spent sitting on the observation deck, staring at the stars. It's surprising how little they actually move.

Their route is direct to Earth. Since the Pear holds a moon's worth of exhaust mass in an extra-dimensional pocket, the ship has nearly unlimited fuel. So there's no dicking around with transfer orbits or anything like that.

"Just turn up the juice until you're halfway there, then turn around and slow down," Veronica had explained. "Artificial gravity means we can accelerate at maximum Gs and not have our brains seep out our ears. It's just too bad we just doesn't have the power to get us there faster. If we didn't have so many problems, we could get there in 26 hours."

Mark and Thunderhorse spend most of their days floating around the ship in space suits spraying on the new thermal coating. It took a while to convince them that they wouldn't be left behind if they stepped outside the ship while it was moving. Veronica taught them how to use the spray guns and goes out every once in a while to smack them around and keep them on track.

Steve and Veronica spend their time wiring and re-wiring, building complicated electronic systems, reprogramming interfaces, and generally cleaning up the mess. The Cook's head is permanently detached, since there is one microscopic and vital component missing that no one can find a replacement for. It's okay, though, since Jazelle too can cook. She has a much more limited repertoire, but she cooks with passion.

And such passion she has. Her gazes towards Doc intensify with passing days, but she conceals it with vitrol towards everyone and everything. Doc is careful not to allow her to corner him for fear she might simply mutilate him with lust. Everyone but Thunderhorse, who is blindly in love, is irritated with her if not somewhat frightened. But she cooks a hell of a meal.

Veronica and she nearly came to blows one day. A snide remark about the lack of work ethic on the ship quickly devolved into rude comments on personal hygiene, which then spiraled further into derogatory accusations concerning breeding, in both the familial and habitual senses. Jazelle became frustrated by her inability to use her extrovertant willpower on the android, and Veronica was similarly frustrated by her moral inability to squish the human's skull with her bare hands. Thus Veronica permanently excused herself from the dinner table, and Jazelle permanently excused herself from happy hour.

Since Thunderhorse was practically chained to Jazelle by his own member, he too was absent from happy hour, which made the occasion much more quiet, sullen, and slightly dull. But such is life on a space ship. Mark, having no one to compete with at his usual level of drinking, began to curb his appetite for hard liquor in order to keep up in conversation with Veronica, Doc, and Steve.

"So, those guys who chased us into the asteroid field? They were time cops, weren't they?" Doc asks Steve pointedly.

"What makes you say that?"

"Veronica showed me the message they were trying to implant in our computers. It said, 'Halt immediately. We are the Time Police.'"

"It was dangerous to watch that. It could've melted your brain."

"Veronica saw it first. Then she showed it to me when she knew it was safe. But you knew what was going on the whole time, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Have they come after you before?"

"Yes."

"What will they do if they catch us?"

"I don't know, for sure. I think there's a trial by jury where we're instantly convicted retrospectively, and then either executed or exiled."

"Exiled where?"

"When, more likely. The far future, maybe? Somewhere we can't step on any butterflies."

"How can they tell if we're changing the time-line? If we've changed it isn't it a permanent part of history in the future?"

"Remember how the Q-Net articles from the future were fluctuating so wildly because the outcome isn't yet decided for this time-line? Well, the further in the future you go, the more wild those fluctuations swing. By studying the variances, you can calculate how far back and how significant an event a change is. When someone goes back in time, the fluctuations begin to change. If the Time Police think it's a big enough event, they come back and try to stop it. But if they're too late, like they were for us, their past is altered and, yes, it is a permanent part of their history. "

"So they won't be after us again until we start to change something?"

"Yes."

"Do they know about the end of the galaxy and that we're trying to save it?"

"No, they wouldn't listen. I tried to explain it, but they're bent on upholding the law as-is."

"If an alteration in the time-line is really just us traveling through alternate realities, what difference does it make whether we alter it or not? Why do they care where we go or what we do?"

"There's an alternate hypothesis, which much less evidence to support it mind you, that essentially states that there's only so much reality to go around, and that by changing a time-line we're not traveling through alternate realities, but creating new ones and spreading the 'fabric' of reality thinner and thinner. The more drastic the change, the more stretched the fabric becomes. No one has put forth a reputable interpretation of what happens when that fabric tears. In my opinion, no one reputable has contributed to that idea in any way whatsoever.

"But to alleviate fears that the universe will be prematurely ended by rampant time-travel, or probably more-so to give people a more comforting sense of linear time, the government of the future will pass laws limiting intentional time travel, and will create the Time Police to enforce them. I can only imagine the corruption, hypocrisy, and misuse of power that has brought. Will bring. Whatever."

So far the most significant event on the journey was the halfway point on the forty-fifth day. Everybody gathered on the observation deck to watch as the stars turned mechanically halfway around the glass dome and then stopped. The automated process took less than two seconds. Everyone cheered.

Today is the sixty-second day. Less than a month to go. Doc has been continuing the task of monitoring the sensor equipment which is mostly concerned with analyzing broadcasts from Earth. More easily said, he was watching TV. Among the few shows in English is Abbot and Costello doing their famous Who's on First skit in full color with an 8-bit electronic soundtrack. On another channel is the Pabst Blue Ribbon Bouts, a live boxing match in Madison Square Garden. There's a German sitcom starring a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed actress being pursued by the affections of a gorgeous-but-shy young blonde, blue-eyed man and a clumsy caricature of a Jew, played by a blue-eyed blonde in a costume. The serial seems to revolve around the Jew trying to win the affections of the woman by use of greed, cowardice, and temptation, while the perfect Aryan specimen either undoes the evil the latter has done, or competes with him using
humility, modesty, and courage. Every day, the serial ends with pretty much the same result: the Jew is humiliated and sulks off to plot and the Aryan just misses kissing the girl by some comedic error.

It makes Doc want to puke, but there is honestly nothing else to do. Except, of course, for going down to the cargo bay and cataloging the artifacts there, which Doc decides to pick up again when Goebles comes on the tube for his daily white-power hour. It's almost as bad as Rush Limbaugh.

Doc makes his way down the elevator. He's been combing through the cargo bay the last week or so, trying to identify what's in the crates and barrels there, and if they've been broken. So far nothing has been damaged, so far as he can tell. There are thousands of artifacts, though, all vessels, spoons, masks, anything concave representing nearly every era in human cultural evolution. He's found that the cargo manifest was not remotely completed. Steve must've abandoned the effort to catalog them years ago.

There are, at least for the most part, rough piles of crates by culture and era. Doc has made his way through to the early Imperial China section. Doc begins the tedious task of separating the Qin artifacts from the Han.

Many of the crates were packed with hay which has long since rotted into dust. Doc wears a bandanna over his mouth and nose to keep the stuff out of his lungs. However, as Doc cracks a rather difficult one open, some of the dust gets up his nose and he sneezes. As he flexes over from the sneeze, he ends up projecting most of the expectoration into a small ceramic urn. He wipes his nose on the hankercheif and catalogs the urn into the late Qin pile, and returns to his task.

A moment later, he is aware of a faint screaming sound. It's growing louder. Doc turns to the Qin pile, which seems to be the source of the noise. It's coming from the urn. It begins to shake.

Out pop six men, all Chinese. They're dirty and dressed mostly in rags and carrying iron short swords. All of them are burdened with gold, jewels, and other trinkets far too extravagant for these men to have come by them honestly.

Surprised and alarmed, they drop their booty and draw their swords, shouting something Doc can't understand.

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?"

Getting to Know the Captain

"Sorry, no we can't take the Jeep. We should be arriving inside a lecture hall, so I think getting the Jeep out of there would be a problem. Can't take guns, either. We're already have a potential problem with campus security, since we're using fake IDs without any forged database entries. If a guard asks to scan your ID, you're already in trouble. Just stick them on your jacket and hope no one notices you."

"Wait-no guns?" Doc asks, concerned. "What if the Captain here causes trouble?"

"I won't cause no trouble. I'm happy just to be getting off this ship," Mark replies.

"Take this," Dr. Ritenrong produces a small flashlight-like device. "It's a pain-gun, like the hover sentries use. They're legal on campus grounds, as they're non-lethal self-defense weapons. Don't worry, Veronica will pick us up as soon as we arrive, and you won't have to go unarmed for long."

"What about those old flint pistols? We are going to a lecture on 19th century culture, right? Maybe I'm brining one for show-and-tell."

"I suppose you could get away with it if it were bagged and tagged. The instant the bomb-sniffers smell gunpowder, though, you're gonna get stopped by security. It is a space station, you know, so they're really strict about explosives. Kinda defeats the purpose if you're using it to control Mark."

"Look, I'm not gonna try to escape. If we're goin' to a space station, where the heck is there for me to go, anyway?" Mark pleas.

"How can we trust you? Hell, you shot me the first time we met," Doc says.

"Hey, now, we hadn't met when I shot you. All I knew was that some greasy snake oil salesman and his dumb, hulking brother had beat the shit out of my men, broke a prisoner out of jail, and locked up the sheriff and judge. Hell, you threw a flash-bang at me and my lieutenants. If you hadn't been such a poor shot, I'd probably be dead."

"I set that off between us on purpose. I was hoping to scare you off," Doc argues.

"Son, not even a hundred injuns hootin' and hollerin' can scare me off a target."

Doc stares the man down. His ego is thick as a concrete wall. But ego is too transparent a barrier to hide emotions behind. Mark is scarred. He doesn't know what to make of this futuristic world. He's been a prisoner on this ship, despite the luxuries, and he wants to be free again. He'll run.

"He's gonna run," Doc says aloud.

"How do you know that?" asks Dr. Ritenrong.

"I can sense it. He's lying."

"Can you? Interesting." Steve is wandering off in though.

"Hey! I ain't no damn liar, boy," Mark insists, angrily.

"You might not think you are, but you are. You'll run. I can see the fear behind your eyes."

Mark is getting angry. "I ain't no liar and I ain't no coward, neither!" He stands up quickly. The hover sentry's red light starts flashing. He sits back down.

"What do we do with him?" Doc asks.

"Can we put him in stasis?" Steve replies.

Doc answers. "Not for three hundred years, we can't. After just fifty years there's a good chance of ice crystals forming in muscles or even brain tissue. After 360 we'll have to get him out of there with an ice scraper."

"We'll have to take him with us, then." Dr. Ritenrong

"Hey! I ain't gonna run!" Mark yells.

"Can we tie him up or something?" Doc asks.

"Too suspicious. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. The instant we show up we're going to be on the station's sensors as extra life forms feeding off their life support. They're going to be looking for stowaways as soon as someone notices. If you're dragging someone around by a rope or shackles or even an electric tether they're going to notice, and getting you out of the brig will be difficult at best, especially since I don't have any credentials there, either. You're just going to have to stick close to him and make liberal use of that pain gun."

Mark continues to be upset. "Ain't you listenin' to me? There's no where for me to go. I've never even been to a university or a space station. If we gotta lay low from the guards, that's fine with me, too. I don't want to end up in no jail on a different damned space ship. I ain't gonna betray you."

Doc responds. "You better not. We're the only way you're going to get out of this mess you've gotten yourself into. Why the hell did you jump off Chesapeake, anyway?"

Mark thinks for a minute. "I don't know. I was curious. I saw the stars and Earth from above that day. I've spent many a night in the wilderness, looking up at the stars. Never did I think I'd be among them looking down. I knew you all were coming back here, and I wanted to see it again. It's a good thing I did, too, 'cause otherwise I'd have drowned or burned with the rest of the Chesapeake. So I'm sorry if I seem untrustworthy to you. It's because you've tried to kill me on more than one occasion already. Well, maybe just the once, but damned if that don't spark some animosity."

"Well, you did try to kill us first." Doc says.

"Maybe. But I ain't tryin' to kill you now, and I know I ain't gonna get anywhere if I don't do what I'm told."

"And what is it you want? Where do you want to go?" Dr. Ritenrong asks.

"Hell, I don't know. Excitement, adventure, and really wild things sounds pretty good to me. 'If you do not know where you are going, any road will get you there.'"

"Lewis Carroll," Doc responds. "Wait. That won't be written for another thirty years."

"I know, I read it last week. I thought it would be more like the other one I read, Alice Does Dallas. Boy, was I wrong."

"You're a pig," spits Veronica, who has been quietly studying the way the humans were interacting.

"I suppose I am, sweetheart. What can I say? I like me some pussy."

She scoffs at him. "I don't think I can work with these men, professor."

"Well, you'll have three hundred sixty years without them. It's getting late, now, and we've got to be ready to go at 9 am tomorrow. Get some rest, gentlemen."

Veronica

Life on-board the Younger Brother Pear has become less relaxed now that Mark Daniels roams its halls. He is at times congenial, but more often than not he can be a real jerk. He's a fast learner, but he doesn't have much interest in anything other than guns and shooting things. He ties up the holobooths playing Shoot-Out! into the wee hours of the night. Neither Doc nor Thunderhorse like playing with him, not only because he always wins, but he's also a real prick about it.

Around the ship he's very resentful of the hover sentry that perpetually follows him. He's not allowed below Deck Two unless there's a medical emergency. The time he spends out of the holobooth he spends on the Observation deck staring at the Earth. He's found taking a dip in the pond to be a favorite activity, since the Hover Sentry doesn't like to follow him over the water. Not that it can't, it's just that its risk assessment algorithms cause it to stay on shore and fly around to the edge closest to Daniels. He often plays with the thing by staying in the center of the pond and swimming in small enough circles to cause it to zip around to the other side of the pond and back. Sometimes he pretends to shoot at it.

Although he's a prisoner, Mark has never had it so good. He says this often. Free hot, exotic meals, alcoholic beverages of any nature and quantity, showers everyday, movies, books, video games, air conditioning; hell, even flushing toilets are a luxury to him. The one thing it lacks however...

"Women!" Mark proclaims over a frosty, cold beer.

"Excuse me?" Doc asks, looking up from his datapad. He's been studying the ship's cargo manifest.

"The only place this thing needs is women!" he slurs.

Thunderhorse snorts at him. "You would not know what to do with one."

"Says you, injun." His insult is lost on Thunderhorse. He tries harder. "The only girl you was ever with is that old mare of yours."

Doc has been coaching Thunderhorse on how to take an insult without killing anyone. "No, you are the horse fucker!" It's not going well.

"Settle down, you two," Doc says, calmly.

"Hey, what say we take the shuttle down to the surface and get us some girls. How 'bout it? A night in New York? Or Pariee?"

Doc admits a trip to the surface would do well to break the monotony of being on the ship. But since the autopilot is gone, no one, not even Steve, can pilot the Pu. "Sorry, I don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon."

"So we just sit up here and yank our chains?"

"'Fraid so."

"Where's that whore-machine, anyway? The Maid? I think I'll have a little time with her."

Thunderhorse rockets to his feet, "You will not have her! She is mine."

Mark stands up too. The hover sentry's red alert lights begin to flash, but no sirens yet. "She's tired of you. She told me so. She said you ain't worth the ten dollars you paid her."

"She will not lie with you, maggot!" Thunderhorse yells. The second sentry can be seen circling the hallway outside the galley, red light flashing.

Doc interjects. "She can't talk. She can't feel. She's a machine, and a broken one at that. Now, both of you, sit down and drink you damn beer."

Mark and Thunderhorse stare at each other intently. The hover sentry picks up on the tension and stress levels and sounds a single police-siren "WHOOP" alert. The second sentry responds and enters the galley.

Mark has learned of the effectiveness of tazers already, and backs down. Thunderhorse smiles in percieved victory, but also backs off and sits down when the sentries turn their attention to him.

"Come to think of it," Doc ponders, "I haven't seen the Maid in a while."

"She was not ghost-fucking last night," Thunderhorse confirms.

"It's cause she's sick of your ugly-" Mark doesn't get to finish his sentence before Thunderhorse leaps at him. Mark slides away from the bar and jumps from the stool, ready.

The hover sentries "WHOOP" in sudden alert. They fly between the two and synchronously zap them both. The two yelp in pain and try to flee to opposite sides of the galley as the two drones use their pain-inducing microwave emitters to drive them apart. Eventually, they both hit the floor. Thunderhorse takes a table and chairs with him. The sentries let up.

Dr. Ritenrong enters the galley.

"What the hell's going on up here?"

"He started it!" yells Mark.

"They're at each other's throats, Steve. We need something to do before they both kill each other out of boredom," Doc explains.

"Well, we've got something now. I've completed the analysis of the pipe. It's time-line course hasn't been altered much by Judge Olden's interference. We need to return it to the surface and jump in."

Dr. Ritenrong takes Mark's stool as he joins Doc at the bar. Thunderhorse and Daniels collect themselves and join the others.

"How do we get to the surface without the Autopilot?" Doc asks. "I thought you didn't know how to fly the shuttle."

"I don't, but Veronica does."

Mark's eyes light up. "Who-"

Just then, the Maid walks into the galley. She's no longer wearing her maid outfit, but is instead wearing the autopilot's flight suit.

She walks confidently up to the men. Her bow-legged wobble is gone. "I'm Veronica," she introduces herself, extending her hand towards Doc.

He shakes it. "Doc. Pleased to meet you."

"My maiden! You have returned to me!" exclaims Thunderhorse, extending his arms to embrace her. She decks him. Hard. "Oof!" he cries.

"I'm not your maiden, oaf." She hits him again. Thunderhorse is dizzy and punch drunk. "That's for taking advantage of me when I was broken."

Mark is laughing his ass off. She hits him, too.

"Hey! What was that for?!" he cries, holding his bruising cheek.

"I heard what you said about me. I'm not your pleasure-bot. I'm no one's pleasure bot." She crosses her arms and leans up against the bar.

"So, professor," Doc stammers, "what exactly is going on?"

"Oh, I reprogrammed the Maid. It turns out her cranial unit has about three thousand times the capacity of the Autopilot. So I re-tooled her extremities, wiped her memory, re-installed the basic operating systems and plugged in the autopilot programming. She took to it quite quickly. I think her genetic system reconfiguration hardware has reached a state of semi-virtual sentience."

"... in English?" Doc asks.

"The memory wipe that cleared her programming burns revealed some dormant coding. She's become sentient. A living, feeling, emotional being in all outward respects."

"Well, happy birthday!" Doc toasts, raising his glass. Steve raises his, too, and Mark, cautiously. They drink.

"This kind of thing happens all the time," continues Dr. Ritenrong. "When you reach a certain threshold of computing capacity and genetic algorithms, it's only a matter of time before the machine finds a configuration that brings it to life, as it were. All it takes is a sufficiently complex program. This ship is that and then some."

Doc is still a bit curious. "So, if your memory was wiped, how do you remember Thunderhorse's, er..."

"Raping me?" Veronica finishes his sentence matter-of-factly.

"Well..."

"My brain works on an input-interrogation learning system. Feed it information, and it generates questions relating to that information, which prompts more input, and another layer of questioning. When I was in the Professor's lab learning the ships systems, I began to question why I was learning it. When I got the answer back, I questioned my own existence."

"A sure sign of sentience," chimes the Professor.

"I asked the computer 'Why am I here?' It's response was to detail the history of my manufacture, my time with the Berkley crew, being purchased by Dr. Ritenrong, and even Thunderhorse. When I saw what was done to me, I got angry."

"Micropneumatics and Angry do not mix well," Dr. Ritenrong interjects once again. "Just ask the computer terminal in my lab."

"Sorry about that," Veronica apologizes.

"It's okay, it's your job to fix those kinds of things."

"What if I don't want to?" she asks, hands on hips.

"Well, we're going to have to work something out, now, won't we. This ship needs a pilot, and you're the most qualified being in this sector of the galaxy, in this era at least. The job offers free room and board, free meals or power-core charging as the case may be, free medical or repairs, free entertainment, and of course, excitement, adventure, and really wild things."

"And if I don't want the job?" she asks.

"Then you're free to go to Earth and try to fit in with the humans. You won't be able to find a power outlet for another 70 years at least."

"So I have no choice?"

"You do have a choice. Staying with us and helping out is the better, more logical choice. You are no longer the android Maid, you are Veronica Autopilot: Living being. You are free to explore and expand your talents. You are free to do as you please. Just don't forget we're here to help you, and you're here to help us. Agreed?"

Veronica smiles. "Agreed." She shakes Dr. Ritenrong's hand.

"Welcome aboard," he says. "Now. Gentlemen. And lady. We have a task to perform. Tomorrow we will be returning to Earth to return the corncob pipe to its proper place in time. We will then be traveling through it into the year 2199. We should be arriving at the Orbital College of Arts and Sciences. Veronica, after dropping us off on the surface, you are to return to the Younger Brother Pear and follow the flight plan I've already laid out. Once you reach the outer Oort cloud, power down. We'll meet you back here in orbit in about three hundred sixty years."

"Hell of a way to start an existence, Steve." She says.

"Sorry, but the asteroid fields are in flux too much through the 22nd century because of the war. I can't guarantee any wormholes through that era. It's safer if you just hide beyond the heliopause for a while."

"Gentlemen, once Veronica picks us up again, we'll be on our way to Milwaukee. We've got to determine why Alyss Valia does not exist on this time line."

"Alice who?" Mark asks, his interest piquing at the female name.

"She's a pilot. We need to recruit her."

"Excuse me, but that's my job now. Why do we need another pilot?" Veronica asks, loudly.

"Er, well..." Steve stops to think. "You're still learning, and even with you we're shorthanded on crew. We need all the help we can get. We also need an experienced pilot to help us stop the warship that will cause the destruction of the galaxy in the distant future. As a matter of fact, we need the best pilot in all history to do it. And that is Alyss Valia."

"But she doesn't exist..." Doc says.

"Yes, well, we'll have to fix that." Dr. Ritenrong takes a drink as he tries to suppress a worried look from his face. "Anyway, we may have some trouble getting the pipe back to it's proper place in history."

"How's that?" Doc asks.

"First of all, there's Captain Daniels here. We can't take the hover sentries to Earth so we'll have to escort him ourselves. Once we're on Earth, we don't want Daniels to escape us, so Doc will escort him into the pipe, to the future. Thunderhorse and I will return the pipe to the Brown family, then join you in the future. We should only be a few hours behind you, Doc, so just stay put until we arrive. Here, you'll need these."

Dr. Ritenrong produces a couple of cards from his lab coat. He hands them both to Doc.
One has a 3D holographic picture of himself on it, and the other has Mark's face. They read "OUSA Student ID."

"Student ID's. If anyone asks, you're attending a lecture on 19th century American society given by a Professor Zanathos Schoefield," Steve explains. "Any questions?"

Time and Time Again

"Welcome aboard the Younger Brother Pear, Judge Olden," Doc says, wryly.

"How did we get here? What kind of devil lovin' magic are you using on me?" The Judge demands, angry and indignant.

"You fell into a hole in your own jacket pocket. If I were you I'd get back in there, pronto."

"What the hell kinda fairy-tale nonsense is that? Why are you here? What is this place?" The Judge refuses to look around and examine his situation, instead insisting that Doc bend to his will and explain everything for him.

Captain Daniels, however, is actively examining everything he can. Thunderhorse keeps a close eye on him as he moves slowly about the room, indulging his curiosities. "Is that the War for Independance?" he asks, pointing at the television.

Thunderhorse shakes his head. "No, it's the American Revolution."

Captain Daniels looks at him, confused, probably more-so by the translator than Thunderhorse's comment.

Doc deals with the Judge, playing off the old man's religious superstitions. "This is Purgatory. This ship sails the stars endlessly between Heaven and Earth, with the occasional stop at Hell. Now either you get back into the jacket, or we let you off at our leisure."

The Judge is visibly shaken by this. He doesn't want to believe it, but he can't help but fear that it's the truth. Just then, Captain Daniels touches the window and the shutters dissolve, revealing the stars and Earth beyond. Judge Olden turns as the Captain gasps. The Judge's jaw drops.

"Who...who are you?" the Judge asks.

"I'm Saint Peter, and now is not your time. Get back in the jacket."

The Judge stares at him, not moving. The Captain furrows his brows at him.

Doc rests his hand on his pistol. "Please. You don't have much time."

The Judge picks up his jacket and starts to put it on.

"No, no, just reach into the pocket as deep as you can," Doc corrects him.

The Judge obeys. He pulls the sleeve back off and turns the inner pocket out. He reaches into it and slips away. The jacket falls onto the floor.

Doc turns to Captain Daniels. "And you. You've got to return to your own time."

"My own time?" asks Captain Daniels.

"Uh, yes. It is not your time to be here in the afterlife. Get yourself back to Earth."

Captain Daniels moves slowly towards the coat. Doc picks it up off the floor and offers it to him. Daniels takes it from him, cautiously.

"Saint Peter, eh?" Captain Daniels is evidently not a religious man. Doc gets the feeling he's not going for it.

"Yeah. Now get going."

Captain Daniels examines the jacket carefully. He looks into the pocket. "Guess I'll see you later, Pete." He winks at Doc before reaching in and disappearing.

Doc wipes his brow and takes a seat. Thunderhorse sits back down, too, hypnotized once again by the TV.

Dr. Ritenrong calls in on the intercom. "Hey, I just got two intruder alerts. Did they show up?"

Doc calls back at the ceiling. "Yes, they showed up."

"Did you get them back in the jacket?"

"Sure did."

"Both of them?"

"...yes."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"In clearing the security alerts just now, I see we've still got a guest. He's in Room 7."

Doc and Thunderhorse turn to each other. Thunderhorse grabs his ax as Doc jumps up from the couch. They both run out into the hallway.

Dr. Ritenrong meets them at the elevator. He leads the way towards the room in question.

"I don't understand. I put them both in the jacket with plenty of time to spare. They should both be on the Chesapeake. How did this happen?" Doc asks.

"I don't know," Dr. Ritenrong responds. "It's entirely inexplicable. We've got to expect these kinds of things, you know."

They stop outside Room 7, where a hover sentry that wasn't there earlier is now stationed. Its tazer prongs extend in response to their presence. Dr. Ritenrong asks it for entry. It scans his retina with its single laser eye, beeps a gruff confirmation, and moves aside.

The door slides open. Captain Daniels is lying on the bed, reading a book. There's a stack of them next to his bed, along with several empty cups and plates.

"Well, this is an unexpected surprise. What brings y'all to my cozy little cabin?" He asks, sitting up.

"How did you get here?" Doc asks.

"What?" Captain Daniels asks.

"How did you get on this ship?" Doc asks again.

"Don't you remember?"

Doc looks at Dr. Ritenrong. Dr. Ritenrong shakes his head.

"You sent me back to the Chesapeake in the Judge's pocket. When we were there you didn't remember anything about our being here on the Di Li. When you left the Chesapeake, I jumped aboard the Pu right before you closed the bay doors. Then you torched the Chesapeake, remember? You were there. You put me in shackles and threw me in this room," Daniels explains.

"You've been here all this time?" Dr. Ritenrong asks.

"...yes. Did you forget about me?"

Doc looks at Ritenrong. He turns back to Daniels. "Excuse us, please." Doc orders the door shut again. In the hallway, he talks to the professor.

"What is going on? I thought we had to use a wormhole to change time-lines. How did this happen?"

"It must've been when we used the coffee cup. We arrived in a time-line where Captain Daniels escapes the Chesapeake. The us-es we passed arriving here must've captured him and locked him up."

They open the room door again.

"Do you know where you are?" Doc asks Captain Daniels.

"We're in orbit over Earth in a space ship called the Younger Brother Pear. It is a Multidimensional Astral Research Vessel. I'm not thick, you know. I can read, unlike horse brain over there, and I've had plenty of time to do so."

Thunderhorse snorts at the comment and grips his ax tightly. The hover sentry reacts to him, turning and readying tazers.

The Daniels is nonchalant. "Come on, shit-for-brains. I could use some damned exercise. I'm tired of sittin' around in here, so you right on and kill me if you want. I wish the rest of you would make up your damned minds about what yer gonna do with me."

Doc restrains Thunderhorse with his hand, holding him back from unleashing his viking rage. At the same time he orders the door closed again.

"What can we do with him?" Doc asks.

"I say we kill him," grunts Thunderhorse, pissed.

"Well, it's too late to send him back in the jacket again. Besides, he'd probably just escape again, and next time there might be two of them," Dr. Ritenrong says.

"Can we just drop him off back on Earth?" Doc asks.

"He knows too much, now. Did you see what he was reading? Military history and technical manuals. The Host must've brought them to him, since he's programmed to fulfill any reasonable request, even those made by prisoners. I guess I forgot to mention to him that books about the future are not reasonable requests."

"So what if Daniels knows about the future? What can he do?"

"Too much. What if he invents the Browning Automatic Rifle before the Civil War? Hell, he's got a grudge against Ohio, what if he uses what he's learned to take back the Toledo Strip? It's all too much to risk sending him back to Earth, at least in this era."

"So we kill him," Thunderhorse responds, intently. "We kill him and mash him and feed him to the horses. Then we will see who's brain is made of shit."

Dr. Ritenrong expands on this thought, or rather attempts to steer Thunderhorse away from his train of thought. "Or we keep him here, locked up indefinitely? Who knows, maybe he can be useful. We can't trust him now, of course, but maybe..."

Thunderhorse's train isn't budging. "Kill him."

Good Morning, Operatives

Thunderhorse and Doc are enjoying breakfast in the lounge. Thunderhorse is wolfing down a bowl of Space Puffs and beer while Doc enjoys a coffee, croissant, and cigarette. Thunderhorse snorts in laughter at the TV as Bugs Bunny once again gets the better of Elmer Fudd.

Dr. Ritenrong comes into the room with the Judge's overcoat. He looks exhausted, but pleased, as if he finally solved a problem.

"Good mornin', Steve," says Doc, surprised at the professors presence. He's usually locked away in his lab all day. "You're looking much better today."

"Good morning, gentlemen." Steven lays the data on the coffee table before he joins them on the large, semicircular couch. "Thank you, Doc. I am feeling good."

"How's work on the Autopilot going?"

"He's dead," Dr. Ritenrong replies remorselessly.

"Dead? How did that happen?" Doc asks.

"I tried to rewire his cranial unit to accept larger memory chips, but I overloaded the circuit and his brain shorted out. Unfortunately, I don't have a spare."

"Can we get by without an Autopilot? I mean, can you fly the ship on your own?"

"About as well as a bus driver can fly a passenger jet. Most of the systems can be automated by the computer, but in case of emergency, we're boned."

"Er, how likely is that?" Doc asks, becoming more concerned.

"Well, there's no orbital traffic in this era, so that removes most of the risk. However, there's always a chance of solar storms, meteors, and space pirates. Right now I'd say the chance of emergency is about 1 in a million. In my experience, those odd are not good. But there' s nothing we can do about that. The real problem is that I can't maneuver the ship through the asteroid field."

Doc almost chokes on coffee. "Sorry, why would you want to do that?"

"Asteroids are great for wormholes. Craters on asteroids are created and destroyed everyday. I've got a detailed mapping of the entire asteroid belt and a computer program that can predict almost every impact that has or will occur. Turns out, there's a portal to nearly every era in the asteroid belt. The tricky part is getting to them. Without careful maneuvering, we could hit one and damage the ship, or worse, change the outcome of the impact time-line."

"Okay, so where or when are we going that we need to go into the asteroid fields?" Doc asks. Dr. Ritenrong's wandering sense of conversation is always confusing and somewhat aggravating.

"Oh, we don't need to go into the asteroid fields. We can just orbit the solar system faster-than-lightspeed for a while to go back in time, or near-lightspeed to go forwards. That takes a while, though, sometimes months. I think we'll just leave the ship in 1835 and go into the pipe."

"Go where?" Doc asks again, frustrated. "Wait a minute, what pipe? The corncob pipe?"

"Yes."

"You got it back? How?"

"Not yet, I haven't." He checks his wristwatch, which is more like a bracer with a computer on it. "Give it five minutes."

"Okay, how will you get the pipe back?"

"It was so simple I couldn't see it. I get so hung up on taking care about not altering the course of history in any unpredictable ways, I sometimes forget how much control I actually have over the course of events. Please, finish your coffee. I need the cup."

Doc looks at him curiously. He gulps down the last sip and extends the cup towards the professor. Steve produces the Q-TIP device from his lab coat.

"I spent forever trying to trace the jacket's route through history, only to realize that it's in my hands. I've determined that the jacket is only about a hundred days old. The Judge and Captain went into the wormhole in the pocket about 180 hours ago. So they will emerge from the jacket 2,220 hours before the pocket is destroyed."

Dr. Ritenrong pulls a small, square device from his lab coat pocket. On one side of the device is a sticky tack, which Dr. Ritenrong adheres to the coffee cup. On the other side is a stopwatch display, which Dr. Ritenrong programs for a 2,220 hour countdown. He puts the cup on the table. He dips the Q-TIP in it, and clicks the button on the top. It sounds just like a pen clicking.

"Okay, the charge is set. Let's give it a minute or two, so we have time to get back in the cup."

"Let me get this straight," Doc says. "We're going into the coffee cup, which will take us three months into the future."

"Yes."

"Then we tear open the jacket pocket, which breaks the wormhole."

"Correct."

"Then we re-enter the coffee cup to arrive back at this time, where the Judge and Captain Daniels should be arriving."

"If my calculations are correct, yes. And I am very diligent about my calculations. I've run some tests already. When I first got the jacket I put in a tracking device, hoping to find it somewhere on Earth, in case they went backwards in time because I just got frustrated and tore open the pocket. But the tracer just showed up this morning, putting the wormhole's temporal zenith at about 90 hours ago."

"Doesn't that mean that the jacket is definitely going to be destroyed in three months? Why do we need to go into the coffee cup? Can't you just put a detonator on the jacket its self? Or just wait around three months and then tear it open?"

"I suppose so. In another causality chain perhaps that's what I did, and that's how I got the tracer back. But I figured a demonstration of the Q-TIP was in order."

Almost exactly on this cue, Doc, Steven, and Thunderhorse leap forth from the coffee cup. This is quite a shock to the Doc and Thunderhorse who were, until this exact moment, really enjoying their relaxing morning.

"Flaming teats of Loki!" Thunderhorse yells, throwing his cereal to the floor as he jumps up from the couch.

Standing Doc waves tentatively at himself. Sitting Doc waves back.

Dr. Ritenrong stands up. "That's our cue. Let's go." Doc and Thunderhorse approach the coffee cup cautiously. The Thunderhorses stare at their mirror images, trying to intimidate each other as they circle around each other, trading places.

New Doc takes the seat Original Doc was sitting in, saying "Watch out for the stool."

"Thanks," says Original Doc.

Original Dr. Ritenrong lifts his leg like he's going to stomp on the coffee cup. As he puts it down, he shrinks away into it, disappearing. Doc and Thunderhorse look at each other. Thunderhorse goes next, following Steve's procedure. He, too, disappears into the coffee cup as an expression of both surprise and fear washes across his face.

Doc goes next. He puts his leg down into the coffee cup. The coffee cup becomes a huge tunnel as the universe balloons around him. Immediately, the other side appears, as if he simply stepped through a doorway. The world beyond is giant, but shrinking. He steps right out the other side, right off the edge of a bench in Dr. Ritenrong's lab. He stumbles and hits his shin on a stool.

Doc collects himself, his shin smarting but okay. The Judge's jacket is lying on the bench next to the coffee cup. The time bomb on the cup is counting down the remaining few minutes until the cup shatters. Dr. Ritenrong is already here, working quietly on a robotic head in the corner. He waves a quick greeting at the party, and returns to work. The Host is also here, waiting with a broom and dustpan.

"Okay, here we go," Dr. Ritenrong says as he picks up the jacket. He turns the jacket pocket out and gives it a yank. It doesn't budge. "Some good stitching on this. Here, Thunderhorse."

Thunderhorse takes the jacket. He yanks hard, grunting. The pocket resists little and is quickly torn away. He hands the jacket back.

"Alright. That's it. Let's go back." Dr. Ritenrong says. He climbs back up on the bench and steps into the coffee cup. Thunderhorse again follows him, and Doc after.

Once again, the universe grows huge as he steps into the cup. This time is easier, now that Doc knows better what to expect. He steps gracefully from one end of time to another, arriving back in the lounge where he, the Thunderhorses, and Dr. Ritenrongs are meeting each other again.

"Flaming teats of Loki!" Thunderhorse yells, throwing his cereal to the floor as he jumps up from the couch. Again.

Doc waves at his sitting self. The Old Doc waves back.

Old Dr. Ritenrong stands up. "That's our cue. Let's go." The Thunderhorses do their little mirror dance as they trade places.

Almost without thinking, Doc says "Watch out for the stool." Then, almost experimentally, he adds "That first step is a doozy."

"Thanks," his former self replies. They that were step into the coffee cup, on their way to becoming those who they are now.

The jacket still rests on the coffee table. There's no sign of Judge Olden and Captain Daniels.

"It changed," Doc says.

"Hmm?" asks Steven.

"Before I said 'Watch out for the stool.' This time I added 'that first step is a doozy.' It changed."

"Yeah, that happens all the time. We never return to the timelines from whence we came. It always changes. Changing the future often has just as much effect on the past as changing the past has on the future. It's usually something benign like that. I've got to take those anti-causal effects into my calculations all the time. It can be a real bitch."

Dr. Ritenrong calls in the Host, who arrives promptly. He hands the android the coffee cup. "Please take this to my lab and keep it in secure-store until, oh, say five minutes before the timer goes off."

"Of course, sir." The Host complies and takes the cup away.

Doc, Thunderhorse, and Ritenrong sit on the couch and watch cartoons for a while, although they watch the jacket more than the TV. They wait expectantly for the slightest sign.

Thunderhorse is easily distracted by the TV. Doc picks up the manual for the clone-o-mat and reads, intermittently glancing at the jacket. Steve stares at the coat intently.

Half an hour later, the pipe falls out of the pocket, followed by a gold pocket watch and some coins. Dr. Ritenrong springs to his feet and picks the stuff up off the floor. He's practically jumping for joy.

"We've got it!" he says, waving the pipe above his head. "I'm going to start my calculations immediately! If the other two show up, just shove them back in the jacket. Get them back on their timelines!"

"But the ship burned and sank, we can't send them back to their deaths," Doc says, but Dr. Ritenrong had already ran out of the room.

Doc ponders what to do. He goes back to his room and straps on his pistol. He grabs Thunderhorse's axe and brings it into the media room.

"Here. Just in case they want to start trouble." Doc says. Thunderhorse nods. Doc goes back to reading, trying to put the butterflies out of his stomach.

The manual is technical and difficult to follow, but engrossing. Two hours later, Thunderhorse is asleep on the couch, snoring loudly. The TV is playing a history show about the American Revolution. Doc had almost forgotten about Judge Olden and Captain Daniels.

But suddenly they're here, falling out of the jacket pocket like sacks of potatoes. Thunderhorse awakens with a start. Doc stands and offers a hand to help them up.

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen," Doc greets them. Captain Daniels accepts his offered hand and allows Doc to pull him up.

The Judge chooses to struggle to his feet on his own. "Where the HELL are we?!" he demands.

Whats Up, Docs?

Doc and Thunderhorse have been studying, training, and drinking heavily for more than a week without much sign of Dr. Ritenrong. He's been practically camping out in the robotics lab the whole time. Occasionally he will appear in the galley late at night, order dinner and drinks, and chat briefly. He's not much for conversation, though.

Doc manages to catch him in the galley at about three in the morning. Thunderhorse was off abusing the malfunctioning Maid, while Doc was watching what at first appeared to be a brain transplant, but was in fact a sex change operation. The Atharan patient was having a large, single gonad installed in his (formerly her) skull, replacing the uterus that was there. Doc drinks some single malt whiskey, quickly, as the vulva still on his/her face is quite disturbing.

Steve comes in and sits down next to Doc. He orders a roast beef sandwich, looks briefly at the TV, then changes his order to chicken salad. He also orders a vodka martini.

"What's up, Doc?" Doc asks.

"Everything and nothing," the doctor replies. "That autopilot is hopeless. There's just not enough TerraRAM slots in his cerebral processor housing, and his systems are not compatible with ExoRAM. I need to either get a bigger cranial unit or buy a less complicated space ship."

"Sounds rough," Doc replies as he sips his whiskey. "What about the overcoat? Figure out where that wormhole goes?"

Steve slams his martini belligerently. "See, that's the whole damn problem with quantum physics. Fucking Schrodinger. Right now, it goes anywhere, AND EVERYWHERE. At once. It's all in flux. We won't be able to collapse the waveform and KNOW until we go into it. But I want to have some kind of idea of where the fuck we'll end up. These kinds of calculations take forever. Sure, I could weld together a metal cup or something right now, open up a wormhole in it, plant a small time bomb on it so that it cracks open in 2199, and keep it in on the space ship in deep space for the next 360 years. Theoretically, we should show up right where we want to be without any dicking around. But you know what?" Dr. Ritenrong stops to drink from his second martini.

The pause goes on. "What?" asks Doc.

"Theories are horseshit. Do you have any idea what could happen in the next 360 years? Of course you do, you're a damned historian. There's no way to guarantee that that cup will make it that far, or worse, not go too far. What if the explosive doesn't go off in time? What if the stabilizers fail and the ship drifts into the sun? What if space pirates attack? You know what, they will. All of that will happen. And it won't happen. It will be a totally random chance where we end up. Believe me, I've tried it.

"The only way to reliably navigate time is to find something that you know will take you where you want to be. Something you can trace the history of from start to end. That corncob pipe was a perfect example. All we had to do is open a wormhole in it, jump in, and leave it to its natural course through our timeline. It would take us exactly where we want to be. I spent months doing the research and calculations, and that idiot judge fucked it all up."

Dr. Ritenrong drinks some more. The cook brings him his salad, but he's no longer hungry. He picks at it a bit.

"You know, I never thought my career would end up like this. I spent forty years researching wormhole and time travel. When I finally worked it out, when I finished my sketch of the Q-TIP's mechanism on the fridge, I showed up at my own door. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever opened your door and saw yourself on the other side? It'll mess you up, man.

"I came in to my apartment and told myself 'The galaxy will be destroyed and only you can stop it.' Then I handed me the Q-TIP and jumped into a coffee cup, which promptly fell off the table and smashed into pieces. Damnit, why am I so damned cryptic, sometimes? I guess it's because no one payed attention to me in school." He finishes his martini and orders another.

"I spent the next five years trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about. I traveled time, backwards and forwards, studying and researching the fate of the galaxy and what I had to do with any of it. I also made a few bucks on the side, and got some swanky tenures at some respectable universities. Cambridge is my favorite. Did I tell you Isaac Newton is a good friend of mine?"

"No, you never mentioned that."

"Oh, yes. He's a reclusive, arrogant dick most of the time, but when he lets loose, it's a party." Steve chuckles to himself. "'Those aren't my knickers!' haha, classic." He smiles into his glass, and takes a sip. When he puts it down again, he's solemn. "Then I found my graveyard."

"Graveyard?" Doc asks.

"Yeah. After years of searching for answers, I finally figured out where the fuck I disappeared to all those years ...ago. I was in a cave in ancient China. So I went there, hoping to ask myself what I had seen that was so important. What I found was me, dead. Lots of me. There were at least twelve bodies, all me, all dead. I don't know what killed any of them, and I'm not sure I want to find out. They all just seemed to stop living. It's got to be something about narrowly escaping the cataclysm."

He shudders as he remembers. "On the walls were detailed the events that lead to my deaths. I suppose I put them there so they would be preserved. A map of various timelines, each leading to a disastrous outcome. The galaxy on the verge of destruction, having to escape to the past to pass the torch, so-to-speak, and then crawling into a cave to die. Is that what will happen to me? How many times will this go on?" He chugs back the rest of the drink.

"What happens in the future? How exactly is the galaxy destroyed?" Doc asks.

"See, it's this ship. Not this ship, a different one. I think," he slurs. "And it galaxies through movement at the light of speed. It uses an ex-tra-die-men-shin-al fuel star fueler thing to push it through the ex-tra-die-men-shins. Then it crashes into this thing, I donno whadit is. You can't see it its ex-tra-die-men-shin-al. But it crashes and BLOOOOOWS up into bits and pieces and then the galaxy disappears." Steve hiccups.

"What ship?"

"A warship. Last time it happened it was a warship. First time, it was this ship. Thats why I bought it, so I know it doesn't go and blow everythings up. Every time the galaxy explodes I try to go back and change something to stop it. So first thing to do is buy this ship and make sure it doesn't go and crash into the whadderveritis. But then something else happens. After this ship, it was a space probe, so I blowed that up but then they just sent another one. So I stopped them sending probes but then a courier went through that sector and HE crashed. It took three lives just to stop that guy from taking a shortcut. I mean you think people want a galaxy instead of pizzas but, sheesh, some life forms. After the pizza guy, a damned warship goes through and IT hits the fucking thing. That was five lives ago, and I still haven't figured out how to stop it. Can't stop the war, I started it to stop the courier. Can't blow up the warship, it's a damned warship, and any other warship you send after the first will just go and crash its self. Can't just put up a sign saying 'DO NOT ENTER THIS SECTOR OF SPACE IT WILL CAUSE THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GALAXY' because too many depressed jerks would just race right the fuck out there and end the galaxy right now. Already tried it.

"Anyway, I can't thinkaboudit anymore tonight. Gotta sleep." Dr. Ritenrong slides off the bar stool and staggers off towards his room, crashing into a table and chairs as he leaves the galley.

Killing Time

"Why do we go in the booth, again?" Thunderhorse asks. His eyes are red from days of watching movies and drinking beer.

"To learn how to use guns," Doc responds. His eyes are equally red from days of reading and drinking coffee.

It's been almost a week since they returned from Earth, and Doc has done nothing but study and watch the occasional movie with Thunderhorse. Thunderhorse has been learning about Earth history, guns, the film industry, and reading. The latter is not going so well, but progress is being made. Thunderhorse has been enjoying Westerns and gangster films. World War 2 movies scare the hell out of him.

This morning, Doc decided it was time for a break from the routine. He'd been reading about the Holobooths, and thought it would be good to try them out, finally. Fortunately, it seems Dr. Ritenrong has a western style game on file.

The two step into the spherical booths on either end of the lounge. The world they enter is dark, save for a pair of doors behind them.

"Load the Shoot Out! program, computer," Doc commands. The computer complies.

The black world becomes light as a bright sun rises over an old desert town. Doc is surprised to find that he's wearing a cowboy hat and chaps, along with a belt laden with a six-shooter. Thunderhorse is even more surprised to find himself in the same condition.

"What is this magic?" he asks, without the usual fury as he's becoming accustomed to the strangeness of his new surroundings.

"It's an illusion. We're going to play a game."

"We're in a Western!" Thunderhorse is excited. "Will we meet the Outlaw Josey Wales? What about Lee of Marvin?"

"I don't know. This is more of a High Noon game, or The Quick and the Dead, remeber that one?"

Thunderhorse pulls out his revolver. He looks it over, examining its parts. Doc had previously explained the function and concept of guns to him, but this is the first time he's held one. He pulls the trigger, almost by accident.

Doc feels a physical jolt as his world goes black. A giant, laughing skull appears hovering above letters a hundred feet tall; "YOU LOSE!" Momentarily, the world becomes bright again, and he's back on the deserted road with Thunderhorse.

"HAHAHA! That was funny! Let me do it again!"

Thunderhorse takes aim with the revolver, but this time Doc whips his revolver up and plugs the viking before he gets a shot off. Thunderhorse flies back and hits the ground. After a short moment, he fades away and re-appears standing again.

"That was not so funny," Thunderhorse says, rather upset by the experience.

The small town is not much more than a road lined with a dozen wood buildings, and desert surrounding them in every direction. The place looks real enough, but feels artificial. Something about the lighting, the textures, the sounds and smells seems fake or unrefined. It's probably just a cheap game.

The town has a general store, a church with a clock tower, a bank, a saloon, a sheriff's office, a stable, a few houses, and a mansion at each end of the road. A brief conversation with the poorly animated town drunk outside the saloon reveals the basic plot of the game: the two rival families are having a quick draw tournament to see who is the fastest gun in the west. The prize is one million dollars.

There are a selection of weapons in the general store, and not much else. In fact, the only thing for sale besides weapons and ammo is a change of outfit. Whiskey can be bought at the saloon, but it doesn't seem to have much effect other than tasting like bad whiskey. The two start with $5, just enough money to enter the first round of the tournament. Thunderhorse has already spent his on whiskey.

A sign on the road points to a "practice area" out in the desert, where rabbits, cactus, and birds regularly spawn and disappear, kind of like a realistic shooting gallery. The two go out to warm up.

Doc is doing okay. Every time he hits a target, a little ching! sound tells him he's made more money, 10 cents for cactus, 25 for rabbits, and a dollar for a bird. Ammunition here seems to be infinite. Thunderhorse is having a hell of a time. It's easy enough for him to pull the trigger, but he hasn't gotten the whole aiming thing down. He keeps flinging the gun forward before he pulls the trigger, as if he must sling the bullet out.

Doc helps him out with this a bit, and Thunderhorse is ecstatic when the bullet finally hits a cactus and the little ching! goes in his pocket. "Hooray! I have destroyed the green thing!" He keeps trying, getting a little better as he goes.

Doc leaves Thunderhorse to practice while he decides to go start the tournament mode. To do so, he must pick a family to sponsor him, either the "Bucks" or the "Reds." Doc goes with the Bucks because their mansion is closer. He pays his five dollars and the fight begins immediately. He is called out to the street by a grizzly looking bandito. The townspeople line the street, conveniently blocking all exits.

The mayor referees the fight. "At the sound of the bell, draw!" The bandito has a few inane chatter loops, insulting Doc's mother in the most politically correct ways possible. The sound of the clock ticking is amplified, and it's magically ten seconds to noon.

When the bell tolls, Doc draws and fires. His opponent is almost hilariously slow on the draw, and falls quickly. The mayor shouts "Doc wins!" with the "Doc" part poorly tacked on. $10 falls into his pocket.

After a few rounds of this, Doc has enough cash to start buying new weapons. He picks out a shotgun and a rifle and takes them out to Thunderhorse for him to try. Thunderhorse is still at the shooting range. He's getting better, missing only every three of four shots instead of all of them always. He's reloading the pistol when Doc arrives.

Doc hands Thunderhorse the rifle. It's a poor replication of a Winchester, but it will work for now. "Here. Try this one." Doc shows Thunderhorse how to use it. Thunderhorse tries to hold it like the pistol, but Doc corrects him. Thunderhorse fires and misses. It's obvious Thunderhorse is uncomfortable with it. Aiming and precision is just not his thing. Doc gives him the shotgun instead. It's a simple single-shot, short barreled shotgun.

One blast and Thunderhorse is in love. The shot easily takes out a rabbit. "Now this I like," Thunderhorse remarks. He reloads it and keeps on shooting, hollering with excitement when he lets off a blast. He's hitting almost every shot with this.

Doc practices alternatively with the rifle and the pistol while Thunderhorse enjoys the shotgun. As they shoot the targets, they shoot the breeze as well.

"What's it like living in the Winterlands, Thunderhorse?" Doc asks.

"It is a hard life, not like here. Here we eat whatever we desire, whenever we desire. In Hilton, our farms were small, and could only grow very little, for the warm seasons were very short. We either bought our food from the city, Venis, or we simply took it from others. If you wanted meat, you had to kill a sheep, but sheep are well protected. They cost many gar, and thus were kept safe behind the city walls.

"The city of Venis is large place, even larger than the place we saw on Earth, although it only has one tall building, the Tower of Venis. It is the seat of Nathan the Pickled, King of Venis and self proclaimed ruler of the Winterlands. No one beyond the city walls accepted him as king. We of Hilton live for ourselves, and deny any man who would rule us. But that did not stop him from sending his armies into our town to burn our homes and take our women.

"King Nathan proclaimed he was protecting the country side from brigands and thieves, and that he was bringing peace to the land. Ha! If he had simply shared his grains and wine and sheep with us, we would not need to kill his men and steal. My fathers tell me stories of the days before Venis, when we would ride across the seas, looking for a home; a land rich in soil and beasts. When my fathers arrived at the Winterlands, it was a warm and green place. But when the snows came, Nathan's fathers killed and raped and stole our food, locking it away behind their stone walls.

"Some say it was an evil spirit that possessed Nathan's family and cursed the land. Other say he hides a frost giant below the tower, who bring with him snows and death while giving the king power and wealth. I think this is true. It was a frost giant who led us astray all those years riding through the wastelands. He clouded our vision with snow and wind and killed us with frostbite and starvation. That frost giant was protecting King Nathan, for if we had reached the Tower, we would have laid it in ruins.

"I will return there, someday, and have my revenge. If what you say is true, and we can travel through time its self, then we can save Hilton together, keep Jazelle safe, and crush Venis with our mighty thunder slings!" Thunderhorse fires the shotgun, hitting a bird. He smiles with pride.