Short but Sweet

Doc takes the podium. "Thank you, Prof. Schoefield. I have always been fascinated with the life and times of 'Doc' Lucas Shaw, as well as the mystery of his disappearance. That is what inspired me to study history in the first place. I won't bore you with a long speech, but let me say that the study of history is necessary so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Thank you."

The two students in the front row seem to be convinced now that he is an actor portraying Doc Shaw, but reluctantly so. Doc waves to the crowd as he steps back from the podium. He receives a very light and brief applause.

The professor returns to the podium. "Thank you, 'Dr. Shaw.' I hope that tomorrow you will return and enlighten us with your thoughts when we cover the Industrial Revolution and its effects on Europe. It is now three fifteen, I am sorry that today's discussion ran late and we did not cover all the topics I'd hoped to get to this afternoon. I hope to see you all tomorrow. You are dismissed. If you have any questions feel free to stay and ask."

With that, the lights come on and the doors open. Most of the students herd out the back. A few, including the two questioning students, approach the table of artifacts. Doc and Mark stand near the corncob pipe, still waiting. Doc checks his I-Browse. It's been three hours since they arrived. He's getting nervous waiting for Dr. Ritenrong and Thunderhorse to appear.

The sorority girl picks up the corncob pipe. "What's this?" she asks.

The professor replies. "That is a tobacco pipe made of a corn husk. People then enjoyed putting fire to dried herbs and inhaling the smoke. It was mostly used in social ceremonies, however herbs such as tobacco contained addictive chemicals which compelled the smoker to smoke more and more."

"Why is there a little man in there?"

Doc and Mark look at each other.

"A little man?" The professor approaches the student.

Thunderhorse leaps forth from the pipe, over her head and off the stage, falling noisily onto the floor. The girl screams. The Professor does the same. Dr. Ritenrong follows shortly, falling hard onto the stage. The other students freeze and stare.

"Ooof!" Steve complains as he collects himself. Doc rushes over to help him. He looks around as he gets up. "Whoops."

"Whoops? What whoops?" Doc asks. Thunderhorse struggles to pull himself off the floor with a hover chair.

"What time is it?" Dr. Ritenrong asks.

Doc checks. "Three twenty-two."

"Damnit, the lecture should've been over by now. Why are all these people here?"

"It ran a little late."

"Shit. Next time I'll set up a quantum-com channel so you can tell me these things. Did you get here without any trouble?"

"Yeah, no problems."

Thunderhorse is finally up and joining them on the stage. The students back away as he passes. The sorority girl runs from him.

"Excuse me, but who are you and how did you get into my pipe?" Professor Schoefield asks.

Dr. Ritenrong dusts off his labcoat and extends a hand. "Dr. Steven Ritenrong, Professor of Quantum Mechanics and Temporal Physics."

"Temporal... physics?" Schoefield starts, but he is interrupted.

Six large men in gray armored uniforms and riot helmets appear at the three doors at the back of the lecture hall, two at each entrance. Red lights start to flash.

"We're boned," says Steve.

An electronically amplified voice echoes through the auditorium. "This is a security control. Everyone remain calm. Please kneel, and place your hands on the ground in front of you. Have your ID cards ready for scanning."

The students immediately comply. Professor Schoefield follows suit. Dr. Ritenrong does the same.

Mark grabs his old saber off the table and breaks for the exit, stage left.

A Better Lecture

Doc follows Mark towards the auditorium stage. They hike up the short set of stairs at the leftmost side and cross to the podium.

Professor Schoefield greets him, hand extended. "A wonderful costume. Very authentic. What is your name?"

"Captain Mark Daniels from Detroit, Michigan."

The professor turns to Doc. "No, no, this is all wrong. Your costume is a hodgepodge mess from the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Perhaps you just prefer outdated fashions?" He shows off his color changing plaid suit a bit. The crowd chuckles at the irony. "What is your name?"

"Dr. Lucas Shaw, but just call me Doc."

"Ahaha, I see! Your costume is of the famous historian! Very good job, indeed. Why you have got it right down to the hair color. My, you two seem to be in very good characters. Excellent participation. Now, Captain Daniels, if you will tell us of your life and times?" He steps back from the podium and extends his hand towards it, offering Mark the position.

Mark steps behind the podium and nervously grasps its sides. He looks out into the crowd. There's probably three hundred students sitting out there in various states of interest, mostly none at all.

"I, uh," he hesitates. Then he grasps the situation. "Alright, listen up, you weak livered hog swagglers. You're all about the laziest sacks of sasparilla I've ever seen. Back in my day you youngn's would be out plowin' fields or bailin' hay or fightin' injuns. There weren't no fancy hover seats or toilets for you to be loungin' around on all day. We worked for a livin'. There weren't no holobooths, neither. When you get shot, you stay dead. "

Mark rants on like this for a while. He's found an outlet, and, damnit, he's going to use it. He tells some rude stories about wenching in Toledo, hunting down Native Americans, horseback riding in the swamp, etc. But he focuses more on the state of this future society as he sees it. "Sure, you might eat better than we do, but thats because we had to hunt down our own meat and raise our own crops. I can't fathom the ranch y'all have where you get so many cows you can eat beef every god damned day. It's a wonder y'all aren't five hundred pound ogres. Oh, wait, there's one. Damn, son, go for a walk."

The crowd responds well to his speech, laughing. They take his insults well.

"Man, what happened to y'all in the last 300 years? Buncha fat-ass, half-breed nigger-injun sons-a-bitches," Mark continues.

This excites a mixed response from the crowd, a sort of "whoah," mixed with laughter. The general consensus is that he's putting on an act, however, and doesn't really mean it. Doc knows he means it. The crowd finally decides to break out into laughter as a whole and applause.

The professor claps beside him. "Very good! A truly authentic perspective, and you've done your research. This will be noted on your records. Very, very good." He retakes the podium and turns to Doc. "Now, class, this student has assumed the persona of the famous archaeologist Dr. Lucas Shaw, last of the time-travel researchers. Let me see if I can get a picture."

The professor fiddles with some controls on the podium, searching for digital images of Doc. Within a few moments, Doc's Smithsonian ID card photo is towering twenty feet into the air behind him. Doc never liked that photo.

The professor adjusts his glasses, but seems unable to resolve his eyesight enough to figure out that he's standing next to the very man. "Quite a good likeness, no? Yes, very good costume." The attentive students in the front row are taken aback, but seem to be questioning their own eyes.

One girl in a sorority sweatshirt and short shorts raises her hand. The professor takes her question. "Uh, did you, like, say time-travel?"

"Yes. Back in the late twenty first century, the Smithsonian made several very, very expensive, very dangerous excursions back in time for the purpose of collecting valuable artifacts and research. This was prior to the Causality Preservation Treaty, of course, when wormhole technology was in its infancy. After Dr. Shaw disappeared mysteriously, it was deemed too dangerous."

A student next to her raises his hand. "Uh, what do you mean disappeared mysteriously?"

"He was just gone one day after checking in to his office. Causal research theorists say that through his time traveling adventures he somehow inadvertently caused his own non-existence."

"How would we even know about him, then?" asks the male student.

"Well..." the professor is at a loss. "Something about destabilizing his wave functions or timeline, or chronosynclastic infundibulae. I don't know, I'm not a temporal physicist."

"Could he have, maybe, gone forward in time? To, like, say, now?" the sorority girl asks, examining Doc intently.

"Haha, impossible," the professor laughs. "I do not know much about wormholes, but I do know they can only lead backwards in time."

The male student continues to argue. "What if someone from now broke the treaty and opened a wormhole to then and pulled him here?"

"Well, I suppose, I mean..." He adjusts his glasses again. He looks at the picture of Doc on the monitor in the podium. He looks back at Doc. "Nonsense. It couldn't be. Very good reasoning, you two, but I'm afraid it's just not possible. The most likely answer is a very good make-up job."

The two students roll their eyes synchronously. The professor turns back to Doc. "Yes, the likeness is remarkable. Are you professional actors? Did the University send you in to liven up my classroom? If so, I'm appreciative. I never was much for giving lectures. Please, do give your speech, I apologize for the delay."

The professor stands back and offers the podium to Doc.

A Lecture on the 19th Century

Doc drags Mark to the nearest seats available at the back of the auditorium. Each seat is spaced from the other enough to walk through in a sunflower seed pattern, leaving Mark just out of arms reach from Doc, but not out of pain-gun reach. The hover-seats themselves are very comfortable, adjusting themselves automatically to the weight and height of the sitter.

The clamor of the students begins to die down as the lights dim slightly and the doors slide quietly shut. A man enters the stage dressed in a gaudy plaid suit with leather elbow and knee patches. The plaid pattern subtly changes colors as he approaches the podium.

"Good morning. I am Professor Zanathos Schoefield," the man introduces himself to the audience in a deep, heavily accented Eastern-European monotone. "I've been invited to Orbital University by Dr. G. S. Lucasberg to give a series of lectures the live and culture of Earth in the 1800's." An holographic slide appears behind him saying so in big, blocky letters. "Today we begin our journey on the North American continent where the frontier boundaries were continually pushed towards the Pacific by enterprising frontiersmen and women using simple iron tools and unending ingenuity." The hologram behind him changes to a map of the continent.

Prof. Schoefield approaches the oak table littered with relics. "I have here some artifacts of my collection relevant to todays discussion. Many of these items were used in the daily life of American frontiersmen. This," he says, holding up a horse shoe, "is a simple device for protecting the hooves of horses during travel. People traveled by horse and because were no cars invented until later in the century when Henry Ford invented the internal combustion engine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the modern automotive industry. Trains and boats were also popular modes of travel in the later half of the nineteenth century, although most people were restricted to horseback by the expense."

The professor's lecture is senselessly long and boring. His dragging monotone, wandering and disorganized topics, inaccurate facts, and excruciating run on sentences puts many of the students to sleep. The most response he gets is when he talks a bit about the chamber pot. Some students giggle, and others voice their disgust.

The speech goes on for hours. The slide show is as boring and inaccurate as his lecture. "This rifle was used by fur traders in the Great Lakes area during the early part of the 19th century. " A picture of 18th century trappers appear behind him. "This flintlock pistol," he says, picking up Marks old gun, "was the weapon favored by most military commanders prior to the Civil War. They also carried swords, but were used mainly as a decoration to the uniform. It was rare that a sword such as this," he picks up a saber, "would be used in actual combat."

Mark seems livid. "That's my stuff!" he half shouts.

The professor notices him. "Very good, student. Your costume is an authentic representation of a US Marine in the 1820's. However, these particular artifacts were recovered from the site of an old farm in Toledo, Ohio where no Marine division served at the time as they were assigned to battling pirates in the Caribbean. "

Mark stands and replies. "No, my 'costume' is the Captain's uniform of the 21st Division of the Michigan Militia, from the 1830's. And the Marines are in Peru," he corrects himself, "..were in Peru, at the time."

The students begin to rouse themselves. Something interesting is finally happening.

"I see that you are right about your uniform, I apologize I cannot see all the way to the back of the auditorium because it is so dark and I am due for another session at the laser surgeon's. Why don't you come up and tell us more about how you assembled this costume and what you learned from your research?"

Mark looks at Doc, briefly, then starts marching towards the stage.

Weapons Reference

Simple Weapons
Switchblade - Doc's good luck charm. Blade, 1d4 dmg; Tiny, Concealable
Maglite Flashlight - A relic of the 21st century. Club, 1d4 dmg; Small; 6 hours battery life, 100' directional illumination
VibroKnife - Fine ceramic blades which use ultrasonic resonance for a smooth cut. Blade, 1d4+1 dmg, Critical Hit threshold 19-20; Small, Durable

Non-Lethal Weapons
Pain Gun - A small flashlight like device which emits a microwave beam which directly irritates the nerves. Frequency can be slightly adjusted to effect other mammalian humanoids. Range 10', Battery life 1 Hour, Reflex Save DC 20 or Flee, Cower if cornered; Tiny, Concealable
Stun Gun/Taser - Uses an electric current to stun an opponent. 1d6 non-lethal, Stun 1 round (Fort save DC 15). Tazer: launches electrodes up to 15 feet; Small
Tranq. Gun - Fires small darts filled with sedatives. Range 30'. Unconscious 2d6 hours, Fort save DC 30; Small
Mace - A liquid spray containing large amounts of the irritant capsicon. Range 5'. Stunned for 1d4 rounds and Blind 1d4 hours, Reflex save DC 15; Tiny, Concealable

Melee Weapons
Thunderhorse's Battle-Axe: A Nordic 2-handed, double bladed Battle Axe with sharp prongs at the top for stabbing as well as hacking. Battle Axe 1d8 dmg; Medium, Heavy

Ranged Weapons
Doc's Colt .44 Revolver - Doc's most useful tool. Pistol, 2d6 dmg, Range 40', 6 chambers; Small
Flintlock Rifle - Old style muzzle loading ball and powder gun Rifle, 2d4, full round to reload, 60' range; Large
Flintlock Pistols - Pistol, 1d6 dmg, Full round reload, 30' Range; Small
Ion Pulse Laser Pistols - Fires a blast of ionized helium at near-light speeds. Pistol, 2d8 dmg, Range 200', 120 shot Semi Automatic; Small, Lightweight, Vacuum Operable
Bull-pup Railgun Assault rifle - Fires very small aluminum bullets at high speeds using magnetic propulsion. It's bull-pup configuration allows for easier maneuverablility in tight spaces. Assault Rifle, 2d10 dmg, Range 100'; 10,000 round clip; semi auto, 10 round burst, or full automatic (100 rounds); Medium, Ligthweight, Vacuum Operable


Grenades
Dynamite - Sticks of sawdust soaked in nitroglycerin. 15' blast, 3d6 - 1d6 / 5'dist, Reflex save DC 15 for half damage.
Power Pack - A highly volatile battery used to power pulse-lasers and railguns. 30' blast, 6d6 - 1d6 / 5' dist, Reflex save DC 30 for half damage

Orbital University

Morning comes too quickly. For the last week or so, Doc has made a habit of staying up late drinking with the others. Day and night really have no meaning on a space ship; the sun rises and sets every couple hours. It's easy to lose track of your circadian rhythm. Doc barely gets four hours sleep before the alarm goes off.

Breakfast is brief: coffee, toast, and "energy jam" which tastes like someone crushed a bunch of Flintstones Vitamins into a bowl of Jello. Mark and Thunderhorse are as sluggish as Doc. Steve seems fairly chipper, however.

"Good morning, Operatives. Ready for adventure?"

"No," Thunderhorse says bluntly into his morning brew.

"Tough titties, my friends. Off your asses and into the bus. We've got bacon to deliver."

"What bacon?" asks Thunderhorse.

"I just mean we've got things to do. Now, everyone, to the Pu. Veronica is already starting the launch procedure."

They all quietly ride the elevator together down to the hanger. Mark has never been on these levels before. He's already radiating a sense of liberation as the party enters the hanger. The tools, devices, and broken bits of the EG shuttle capture his interest significantly. Doc and Thunderhorse flank him needlessly. The yawning mouth of the Pu shuttle awaits them.

Veronica is sitting at the console, staring at it intently. Lights and monitors respond to her every glance. "Strap in," she says sharply as the party takes their seats. They do.

"All safety checks complete, preparing for detachment." She wills the docking clamps to disengage. Gravity releases its grip, and the ship begins moving back.

"How are you controlling the ship?" Steve asks.

"I found the frequencies for the remote operating systems and decoded the signal."

"But that signal is encrypted, how did you break the code?"

"I guessed."

"You guessed?"

"Forty one million, six hundred ninety two thousand, eight hundred twenty eight times."

"Using what algorithm?"

"None, really, I just guessed."

"Your brain is a computer and you just guessed."

"Got a problem with that?"

"Absolutely not. It's very interesting, that's all."

A short burst of flame spurts from the front of the ship. The Younger Brother Pear shrinks away. Another set of bursts flips and rolls the Pu precisely into a descent position, rather suddenly. The Earth grows larger beneath them.

Fire surrounds the cockpit, slowly at first but quickly into a violent blaze as the ship tears through the atmosphere. Their downward momentum turns to lateral speed as they fly over the Pacific towards North America. The scene becomes ever more familiar as the approach the Great Lakes.

Within a few moments, the Pu comes to rest in the same site it was before, in the middle of the Black Swamp. The landing is smooth. All in all, it's the most comfortable fall from the sky Doc has experienced to date.

The crew remove themselves from their seats and head towards the gangplank. Steve stop them at the door. He's withdraws the Q-TIP and the corn cob pipe from the pocket 19th century suit he's wearing. He dips the pen in and clicks the button. The wormhole comes out like sticky fluid bubbling inside the pipe.

"Okay, time to go. Doc and Mark, you go in now before Thunderhorse and I set out to deliver the pipe." He holds the thing forward. "Jump in."

Mark jumps in suddenly and quickly, reaching his arm deep into the pipe and disappearing. Doc reaches in after him as quickly as he can.

The room they arrive in is dark but sounds quite large judging by the echo. The florescent lighting flickers to life as sensors measure their presence. It's an auditorium. Folding desk chairs reveal themselves and rise from the floor as the lights above flash on in sequence.

They're standing next to an old oak table littered with trinkets and artifacts; the pipe, some silverware, wooden toys, an ax, a chamber pot, arrowheads aplenty, etc. One item of note is a familiar flintlock pistol once belonging to Captain Daniels himself.

"Hey, that's mine," he says, reaching for it. Doc stops him.

"Leave everything alone," Doc orders, pulling the pain gun from his pocket and slipping it partially into his sleeve.

Just as soon as all the lights come on and all the chairs have risen and unfolded, the three sets of double doors at the back of the lecture hall open, and a flood of students come pouring in. Men and women in their late teens and twenties all wearing fashionable jumpsuits, color changing bikinis, purposely ragged name brand flannel shirts and jeans, and a whole host of post-post modern retro styles and fashions. They chatter loudly into telephone headsets implanted in their heads. It's as if a flock of wild birds suddenly flew into the room. They begin to seat themselves.

A few of the students join Doc and Mark at the oak table, examining the 19th century relics.

"Whats this?" a young man in a color-changing Hawaian shirt asks his friend in drag.

"It's a chamber pot. People used to shit in them before they invented enematics."

"That's way gross, sapes."

"Yeah, homo, no spish. What did they do when they had to swizz?"

"Go into the same pot and stick it under the bed."

"That's frakin' stank, homo. Spish and swizz in a pot under the bed. Total munk."

Doc is momentarily distracted by the bizarre conversation. He almost doesn't notice Mark moving swiftly towards the back of the room. He catches up quickly near the doors and grabs his arm, pain gun at the ready just inside his coat sleeve.

"Just trying to find discreet seats," he says, smiling.

Doc knows it's bullshit.

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?"