Ryan Time

by Craig Robertson

  “The time maker is solely focused on time. It will do anything to amass and bend it to its will. It will, as a result, deal with whomever confused time most harshly.”

  “It's cruel, like the body maker?”

  “Oh, no. The time maker is infinitely worse. To upset the time maker is to suffer fates you cannot understand, or dream of in your darkest nightmares.”

  “I think I'll pass on the details, for now, if that's okay?”

  “Of course it's okay, captain.”

  “Thanks.

  “You got any timeframe on this unbelievably bad revenge thing?” I asked, squinting one eye.

  “Any time.”

  *********

  The time maker fought to know the tiny region of slumber. It used its oneness, its basic intimacy, with time to purify the retarded stream from its being. The time maker made itself free of the time anomaly. In less than an instant, it knew the source of the trouble, and of the heresy, too. Small, small vermin were on a clan ship. They dared to stop time. They lived like rats. They would die as rats. And then their suffering would begin in earnest. The sour, hate-ridden time maker actually smiled for the first occasion in endless ages. Dreams of ways to make them suffer, throughout all time, gave it a tainted joy. They had insulted its very being. There was insufficient wrath it could dispense to compensate for that affront. But the attempt to balance punishment with deed would be … rewarding.

  The time maker called ferociously to the body maker. “Wake and see, fool. Your folly has caused contamination.”

  The body maker did not know it slumbered. It was not with time as the time maker was. But the guidance of the one that was master of time pulled the body maker from non-time. Upon awakening, it was one with the rage of the time maker. It saw the vermin, on its very own vessel. It sprinted for them. The clan woke one by one, as the time maker sorted through their number. As each alerted, it joined in the fury that was the clan. As one, they descended down on the defilers.

  The vile blasphemers were in the time area itself. That highest of insults made them run all the more quickly. Whatever horrific penalties the clan could mete out were too good for the intruders. One force maker and two repair makers arrived first at the portal to the sphere. The body maker ordered that they wait for it to confront the evil. As more arrived, more stopped at a portal's entrance. They beheld, in anguish, the unclean stand where only the holy of the clan might. They waited like a swam of angry hornets, bent on inflicting supreme pain upon the desecrators. The clan pounded the walls, stomped the deck, and scraped their faces such that they bled time. The wails and cries grew from incredible, to intolerable, to infernal. Hell itself was breaking loose, there at the entry to the time area.

  Then the body maker arrived. It walked boldly past its clan and entered the area. It raised arms to signal the clan to enter, but made them move with slowness. “Defilers,” it howled, “you will die, and die, and die—forever.”

  The clan, led by the body maker, advanced with nothing but blood vengeance in their collective being.

  *********

  “I think this is goodbye, guys,” I said as calmly as I could, which wasn't very. Sapale clung to my shoulder, standing just behind me.

  Sachiko couldn't hear me over the din. She did reach out and take Tank's hand.

  Ryan's Last Stand? I wondered, transiently, and unhelpfully, if that was what the action about to play out would be referred to by history books. Whether I was thinking past history books, or future ones, I couldn't say. I was confused and distracted.

  “You two get behind us,” I shouted to Tank and Sapale.

  They hopped-to without me asking twice. Tank had secured an M4 carbine when we'd returned to Earth after acquiring Aramthella. He aimed at the horde, the barrel just off to my right. Sachiko was unarmed. She decided that, if she participated in a firefight with her nonexistent skill level, she'd likey do more damage to our side than to the bad guys. Trust me. After two billion years of combat, if someone says that, you listen, but good.

  The enemy was arriving in spurts, but no one crossed into the TSR. I assumed they'd been ordered to hold in place, pending the arrival of the body maker. But, what they didn't accomplish in forward motion, they more than made up for in bellicose, blood curdling, war-cries. Plus, as ugly as they were, their jumping and whooping was unsettling, even to me.

  The boss thing stepped through the crowd.

  Showtime.

  Tank fired a rapid sequence of short bursts—three to four rounds each—directly at the body maker. Though its hide danced with impacts, it was completely unfazed by the bullets.

  Sapale and I opened up with our lasers. She took the head, I addressed its chest area. The actual beams seemed to dissolve, midair, where they almost struck him. Son of a bitch. When he was halfway to us, I tried to spear it with my fibers. They didn't stick. They might not actually have touched it, because I got no readings or analysis from the ass-dancer.

  Then, without warning or a sound, the body maker began sinking into the floor. It was beyond surreal. It was like the dude was wading into a pool of liquid mercury. Each stride accepted more and more of its body … until it was gone. I swear, it looked like there were stairs in the lake of mercury, and the alien was going below deck to get a snack. The bizarro alien was so calm, actually oblivious, as it … it … walked into the liquid floor.

  The squad of wailing monsters just behind their leader were chaotically enraged. They… I don't know… vibrated wildly. Something like that. And then the sorry pukes ran just as … sublimely, into the floor, same as the boss had. Each crazed alien sloshed into its mercurial tomb, all the while screaming a hateful scream. Fear, rage, and confusion filled their thin faces as they dipped below the surface, and were gone. Why not a one of the clowns stopped, or even slowed their progress, is a mystery I will take to my grave. I mean, if they threw it into reverse, presumably, they would not … you know, get sucked under.

  I walked up to what I hoped was the edge of the secure flooring. I cupped a hand to my mouth. “I hope you don't mind if we kind of borrow your ship. Knowing you're part of our ride, now, will give me such comfort. Thanks.” Sorry. Sometimes, Jon just has to be Jon.

  In the stunningly silent time room, Tank stepped over to me. “I think the floor likes us,” he remarked matter-of-factly.

  “I think Aramthella just chosen sides,” purred Sachiko.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “So, we got ourselves a ship,” I exclaimed, with no little excitement in my voice.

  “I prefer to think of it as Aramthella being our new ally,” opined the ship's captain.

  “Of course, you would. Your photo replaced Pollyanna's picture in the dictionary definition of Pollyanna, years ago,” snarked Tank.

  “Tank, you suggest my positive outlook is a liability. I think of it as a key asset.”

  “Of course, you would.”

  “And now, switching our television sets to the Helpful Channel, where do we go from here? This is war. I'm good at war.” I wrapped an arm around my wife. “We're good at war.”

  “A little too good, me thinks,” added my mate. “More practice than a body should have.”

  “I got an amen for that, Sister Sapale,” I sighed.

  “So—” encouraged Sachiko.

  “So, we figure out where we are, where our enemy is, and we list our assets.”

  “Aramthella,” Sachiko asked, “where exactly are we?”

  “My present vector is in what the clan calls the Dominion Subsector. Your people call it The Lesser Magellanic Cloud.”

  “Wow. You're kidding, right? How'd we get here so fast?” she almost gasped.

  “In the vernacular of your people, I put the pedal to the metal.”

  “Why here, and why in such a hurry?”

  “I am attempting to maintain the image of solidarity with the rest of the clan, for as long as possible.”

  “Sounds like a good move. Buys us time to think.” I responded.

&n
bsp; “Yes. If they suspect that the crew was dead, or otherwise compromised, they would turn on us in a flash and no-time us.”

  “Aramthella, I want to get this straight in my head. No-time versus not-time. What's the difference?” I asked.

  “No-time is a verb. It means to take the time from a unit of space/time, leaving only space. The object has no time, it has been no-timed. Non-time, well that's just sloppy speech.”

  “Sloppy speech?” I asked, likely taking the bait.

  “Certainly. The clan has less imagination than a pet rock. To them, time is everything. If one has time, one has life. If one does not have time, one is dead, not-time. Simpleminded fools, if you ask me.”

  “We did,” I reinforced.

  “Thank you,” Sachiko said to Aramthella. “That's most helpful to know.”

  “You know, one called Tank, you could learn a lot from your mate.”

  “Whoa, Nellie,” he zapped back. “Sachiko's not my mate. We work together. That's it. I'm married to my lovely wife of twenty five years.”

  “But, you do not sex-interact with the captain?”

  “That either. Especially, not that either.” Tank was starting to sweat, profusely.

  “Twenty seven and a half,” responded Aramthella.

  “What's twenty seven and a half?” he queried.

  “The actual number of years you have been monogamously married to Daisy Sherman, born Daisy Marie Reynolds in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

  “If you knew all that, why'd you mess with me just now?” Tank said, rather miffed. “By the way, and while you're at it, how did you know all that? Is my family on the galactic internet?”

  “Do they have one of those, now?”Aramthella asked with amazement.

  “You're asking me?” he replied, dubiously.

  “Tank, seriously, I know all that because I was on Earth. You remember the place, right? Lots of water and little collective intelligence?”

  “You were on Earth, like ten minutes,” he protested.

  “I know. I was there. That gave me more than enough time to acquire and collate all available data, not only alphanumerically, but according to how much zinc it contains.”

  “Who could care how much zinc random objects contain?” Tank asked, incredulously.

  “I certainly hope no one does. If they did, they'd make damn poor dinner guests.”

  I had an idea where this was leading, so, of course I didn't let on to Tank.

  “Then why'd you collate that list?”

  “I was bored. What data should I have collated?”

  “Seriously? You were an invading enemy warcraft. You should have tallied up the air, ground, and sea strengths of our combined military forces.”

  “I completed that assessment six picoseconds after landing,”

  Tank crossed his arms. “You could have estimated the total number of potential fighters, including all able bodies adults.”

  “Picoseconds twelve, and half of thirteen.”

  Tank rocked on his toes.

  “All our hardware, operable or not, in Earth orbit.”

  “An eighth of a picosecond, well before landing.”

  “Average density of the seas, with typical seasonal thermal variations accounted for.”

  “Why would anyone collate that?”

  “You did the zinc content. Why would anyone collate that?”

  “Tank, you chew gum. Why do you chew gum?”

  Why did he chew gum? “What's that—”

  “Just answer. You will see.”

  “I guess 'cause I like it.”

  “I collate by zinc content because I like zinc.”

  “You can't compare the chewing of gum with the—”

  “Ah, Tank, any chance we could move on,” I pressed. “Earth stands at the brink of destruction, and you're arguing with our spaceship about to-má-to versus to-mă-to.”

  I could tell Tank was torn between winning the argument and letting it go. That elevated him significantly in my estimation. In the end, he did the adult thing. Boring. “Okay. You're maybe right. We're in the LMC, along with the two ships that accompanied you to Earth. So far, our sister ships do not know we've taken over. But, they will, sooner or later, right?”

  “Most certainly. It's amazing I've been able to maintain the illusion this long. What the clan people lack in intelligence and humor is more then offset by their suspicious and ruthless nature.”

  “Can you estimate how long we'll be safe?” I asked.

  “Only a matter of minutes, likely. The time maker is already both angry with and totally over the body maker's responses to its questioning.”

  “Questioning?” Sachiko spat out. “How can a dead guy respond to the time maker's barbs?”

  “It can't. I can. I've been simulating the voice images of the body maker. Unfortunately, I'm too reasonable and articulate to fool the time maker very well.”

  “Who are all these makers?” I wondered.

  “It's clan monkey-speak. The overall clan leader is called time maker. It is in charge of time acquisition, storage, and use. Body makers are what you'd call local chieftains. They clone the others in their crew.”

  “You keep saying it,” I queried, “are there no sexes?”

  “No. Unisexual reproduction is their species' way.”

  “Okay, thanks for the biology report. What I really need to know is if these clan-things still pose a threat to the people of Earth?” I asked pointedly.

  “If you consider their planning to very soon remove that planet, and all who reside on it, from the time stream, then yes.”

  “Crap on a crepe,” I howled. “We're kumbayaingly getting to know one another, while Earth faces imminent extinction?”

  “No,” the ship replied flatly.

  “But you just said—”

  “I said your home world will be deleted from the time stream. As it will never have existed, it cannot, therefore, be destroyed.”

  “Whoa. What about us? If Earth never was, we never were. So, what, we'll go puff and vanish?” asked Sachiko, growing a bit pale.

  “No, since you are inside these walls, you will be spared that fate. I and those aboard me are exempt from time changes.”

  “How? If we never existed, how can we not be … not here?” she sort of mumbled.

  “Sachiko, maybe we can work out the details later? If we save Earth, we won't have to comprehend the incomprehensible,” I said, by way of easing her pain, and getting us back on track.

  I was really beginning to take a liking to Aramthella. She found as much sport in eviscerating Tank as I did. Good girl.

  Then, it hit the fan.

  “Alert. The time maker has ordered the body maker of the nearest vessel to board, and assume command of, this ship.”

  “How long do we have to act?”

  “We don't. It and five shipmates are around the right hand corner.”

  “They're quick little bastards, aren't they?” I snapped.

  “When it comes to being mean, they are accomplished masters,” replied Aramthella.

  “Can you make the floor swallow them up?” Sachiko asked quickly.

  “I already have, Captain.”

  “What about the other ships?” I pressed.

  “I just removed them from the time stream.”

  “Ah,” I kind of wheezed, “just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “So, we get a break?” I said with a half grin.

  “How do you come to that conclusion?” asked Aramthella.

  “The two enemy vessels and their crews are all gone. Until back up arrives, if it is sent in the first place, we're safe,” I replied defensively.

  “Seriously, Sachiko, you work with this man? You're very tolerant.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” I challenged.

  “It means she's way too understanding and compromises her integrity in bringing you along, General Jon.”

  “I do not,” Sachiko said. This was definitel
y getting out of hand. “Please explain, to the both of us, why we're not safe, in spite of the present threat being removed.”

  “Very well, Sachiko. There will certainly be more clan ships coming. Lots of them. The time maker is angry with this ship's body maker for having wasted time—pun intended—on Earth. However, it is now personal to the clan. Did I mention they're nothing if not mean, vindictive, and cruel?”

  “You did. What may we expect?” I asked.

  “In this galaxy, alone, there are over one hundred clan ships. All told, there are tens of thousands. For all of them, Earth is now clan enemy number two.”

  “Two, who's—” I stopped asking when the obvious answer to my question came to mind.

  “But we have you on our side,” remarked Sachiko, with amazingly perk in her voice.

  “Yes, you do,” concurred Aramthella. “And, I am one of the more advanced time ships they stole. There is that.”

  “So, you can fight them, you know, off?” I asked, more wishfully than I'd have preferred.

  “Them and ten thousand more.”

  “Really?” I responded, a ray of hope penetrating my native pessimism.

  “No, silly. I can run ahead of most. In a battle, I can take out several of them. But, in my reality ten thousand of anything beats one of anything similar.”

  “In mine, too,” I groaned back.

  “So, Sachiko, what would you have us do?” Aramthella asked the captain.

  “You mean to say what decisions have all four of us come to?” I really emphasized the all four concept.

  “Whatever you order is what we shall do, Sachiko. If you'd like to entertain others's opinions, in anything from where to go next to what color to paint the ceiling, be my guest.”

  “There is no need to be sarcastic,” she responded with surprising authority.

  “Why isn't there?” the ship questioned.

  “For one thing, it's not nice,” she replied.

  “Uh, yes, sort of by definition.”

  “And, I won't allow it. Aramthella, you are a member of my crew. I expect you will follow my wishes, like every other member of my crew. Are we clear on that?”

  Nice cojones, Sachiko. I do believe she was getting the hang of the captain thing.