“As long as they keep their traps shut and don’t abandon us,” said Ramirez. “That is asking a lot.”
“Yes,” agreed Ogden. “We must find a way of keeping them interested. We must explore the future of this place in our memory banks and ensure we have made a good choice.”
“That’s essential,” said Gowan.
“Well we didn’t expect this all to come together overnight,” said Stiers.
“I’m more concerned they are popping into doorways all over town and bragging about what they know,” said Ramirez. “I don’t want to see the locals coming across the fields with pitchforks and lighted torches.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” said Ogden. “Meanwhile I suggest we make them welcome until such time, if any, as they prove unreliable.”
Ramirez gulped down coffee from a cup and looked anxious. “I agree this could work,” he said, “but it is fraught with danger.”
“Sometimes, partner, you just have to play the cards you’re dealt and hope bluff works,” said the Captain.
“We may never get out of here anyway,” said Gowan. “All we have right now is theory and hope.”
“We do have time travel in a small way,” said Lillishenger. “Our greater danger may be from the collapse in banking in about thirteen years. We must invest any money we make very wisely.”
“Banking collapse?” said Gowan.
“A severe world banking crisis began in 2007,” said Lillishenger. “It lasted about ten years. We must be careful of that.”
“Nothing but happy news,” grumbled Ramirez.
“The happy news is that we are aware of all this and can plan accordingly.”
Dunfield and Sarah had gone off in her car to fetch what they needed. The crew kept an ear open for its return. The newcomers were equally aware of the need for security and to ensure the gates were locked at all times.
“I like them both,” pronounced Ogden.
“Me also,” said Gowan.
“Like them or not, we’re stuck with them. They were smart enough to find us and recognise this crew and so far they have believed what we told them. We have to make them part of our plans.”
That evening, after the couple returned, the Captain decided to make his ship his sleeping quarters which left Ramirez with a room to himself. Stiers took himself off to the Challenger with a caution. “Somebody had sure as hell make sure I don’t miss breakfast in the morning. It will be a long day and I’ll need a full stomach.”
“As long as you get there before Ogden you’ll be okay,” said Ramirez and ducked a withering glare from the Professor.
They turned in shortly after Stiers left, Sarah and Hugh Dunfield experiencing their first night in new accommodation. Ramirez listened to Lillishenger and Ogden’s nocturnal exercise while Gowan listened to the happy low squeals of Sarah. She signed and slept.
Sarah was first up and made an excellent breakfast of biscuits and gravy followed by hash brown and eggs with orange juice and coffee. Lillishenger said, “I’ll need to do more shopping with all these mouths to feed.”
Stiers turned up still looking tired but breakfast refreshed him. Ogden was already there talking to Dunfield when Ramirez and Gowan showed. They had to eat in sessions as there were not enough chairs. “We’ll recycle some of that old wood outside and make them in the ship,” he said. “Today we need to firm up our plans for travelling and start sketching out what we’ll need. We’ll also need to print up some money and plan our date at the casino.”
“What’s all that about?” asked Sarah.
“It’s like this,” explained Ramirez. “We have no money. Something Fleet didn’t anticipate was our being thrown back in time. We need cash and we have decided to spread the load to raise it.”
“You guys need an income,” said the Captain. “We need operating expenditure.”
“We won’t harm anybody much,” said Gowan. “A little here and a bit there.”
“We have some money,” said Dunfield.
“That is your future. We plan to steal a little from Earth to save this planet in the future,” said Lillishenger.
“My accident was somebody else’s fault,” said Dunfield. “I may ride a motorcycle but I have plenty of money.”
“Well you can go shopping for food next time,” said Ramirez.
“It will be safer to use what I have.”
“It has to last a hundred years,” said the Professor. “We have to plan for your security and ours.”
“Isn’t it stealing?” asked Sarah.
“It’s like a tax,” said Ramirez. “A small tax extracted to keep the world safe.”
“Provided we can actually save it,” said Ogden. “That is what we’re working towards.”
“How horrible are these aliens?” asked Dunfield.
“They’re ugly,” said Ramirez. “They came at us spitting fire. They are multi-limbed and we think they are pirates.”
“What with eye-patches and cutlasses?” said Sarah.
“Worse,” said Ramirez. “They may well have eyepatches and cutlasses but they are uglier than any pirate you have ever seen on atom drive.”
“On what?”
“In the movies.”
“Oh.”
“I have to sum up what we need to accomplish,” said Lillishenger. “As far as I can see it at this time, we need to build a circular track upon which the Challenger will have to travel. It must not spin but must face the same direction. It will have to travel in a vacuum to prevent friction and be contained in a magnetic field.”
“That all sounds simple,” said Ramirez. “Wouldn’t we be faster just waiting for a century to pass. I mean, where do you plan to find a vacuum?”
“We’ll have to construct a chamber in here.”
“Don’t you think all this concrete will be a tad porous?”
“Yes. Everything will have to be sealed and reinforced. We don’t want the vacuum to suck in the walks of this building.”
“I would say that will be the least of our problems,” said Ramirez.
“I am a civil engineer,” said Dunfield. “Nothing is impossible.”
“You haven’t tried getting into Gowan’s pants.”
“And I don’t plan to.”
Gowan said, “Thank you – I think.”
“Why can’t the ship spin?” asked Stiers.
“Because I don’t want the outside travelling at a different speed to the inside and creating a temporal anomaly,” said the Professor.
“I’m lost,” said Sarah. “Maybe I should stick to the cooking and laundry.”
“You will not,” said the Captain. “This is going to be a combined Earth effort.”
Their day was spent productively and by the end of it Ogden, Stiers and Lillishenger had come up with a design for the vacuum bubble, within which they would be transported. Dunfield looked at the plans.
“I suggest a few modifications,” he said as they all looked at the plans on the holo screen. “You have specified titanium but not only would that be hideously expensive, the Russians have control of most of it. It is also notoriously hard to work – like lithium. I would suggest substituting aluminium and Lexan. If we construct a frame on the lines you suggest here, we could cover the outside with thicker aluminium and the inside with Lexan – which is a plastic that is virtually bulletproof. It would give us strength, longevity and a double skin for added security. Lexan can easily be sealed and aluminium can be welded and is still light to handle.”
“We couldn’t get titanium?” said Ogden.
“Not easily – not in these quantities – and it would be hard to find a machine shop to fabricate these panels. They have two curves; an outward convex curve and a second bow to curve it round the ship. Obtaining sufficient lithium for the track should be possible but it will have to be machined in sections.”
“They are small enough to be fabricated on board,” said the Professor.
“Good – because it is another difficult t
o use material. Also you can’t present these holo sketches to any machine shop. They are still using a primitive version of Windows. I can draw them up though and that will be better. If we make them in panels they can be welded here to the frame. And you are going to need some kind of sealed door for when you need to exit, unless you plan on staying on board for several months at a time.”
“No, we can’t do that,” said Lillishenger. “We can wind the drive up to warp speeds for a brief time then we must slow everything down again. It will day a day to build up to light speed and another two days to slow down. I anticipate we can only travel for about a week without suffering any bad side effects.”
“And how much time will that be here?” asked Dunfield.
“About five years. But these figures are not yet definite.”
“So every five years you will be out for a break?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, we can stretch our arms and stroll about a bit,” said Ramirez. “And we’ll need some of that equipment out back as standby. I noticed a couple of generators out there.”
“The plant will still be producing electricity in a hundred years,” said Gowan. “I checked that out.”
“There’ll be power cuts,” said Ramirez. “There always are.”
“Every time you stop and come out, we’ll lose vacuum,” said Dunfield.
“Agreed,” said Ogden. “And by our calculations it will take a day and a half to build it up again when we’re back inside. We could find larger pumps but I wouldn’t want to extract the air too quickly.”
“How long can you stay on board with the air there?”
“We have rebreathers and we can manufacture limited oxygen apart from the compressed tanks we carry and can refill,” said Ogden. “About six months at a push.”
“Six of your months?”
“Yes.”
“I’m just trying to get my head round this,” said Dunfield. “We’ll see you every few years but for you not much time will have elapsed?”
“Yes.”
“Sarah and I will grow old, but you won’t.”
“Don’t envy us. We’ll die not long after you,” said Stiers. “This mission has too many flaws to stand a great chance of success. It will be the last round-up for us. Our end may come within months in our time bubble. Yours will be in real time.”
“When you put it that way,” said Dunfield. “We’ll be better not going.”
“We need everybody’s input to polish these plans,” said Lillishenger. “And we have to find Sarin to poison the aliens. That is something else we will have to steal.”
“We will need to do all that before constructing the bubble,” said Ogden. “Once that is built we’ll be trapped inside until we destroy it in order to get out.”
“Yes,” agreed the Captain. “How long will this Sarin keep, Professor?”
“I am not certain. It should have a long enough shelf life if it travels with us. Not much time will elapse.”
“I was hoping to leave it here and collect it at the last minute.”
“I don’t know it will survive a century.”
“I reckon you’re right,” said Stiers. “What else do we need to do?”
“Find money. Deed the house over to Hugh and Sarah. Order materials,” said Ramirez. “We have to deed the house to them because we won’t be here apart from once every few years. And they’ll deserve something for their efforts helping us.”
“Nice thought,” complimented Gowan.
“And I’m thinking of picking up a Mustang and storing it here. I figured they could look after it and keep it in good shape for when we finally get out.”
“You want to keep a horse here?” said Ogden.
“No, brain-damage, the car. A Ford Mustang or something similar. There’s plenty of room to store one inside here. There are none left in our time except the priceless examples you see in collections.”
“Your plan is to take a car back to our time?” said Gowan.
“Sure. As long as Sarah and Hugh will take care of it.”
“For a hundred years?”
“Why not?”
“I doubt they’ll live longer than fifty or sixty.”
“We face that problem anyhow,” said Ramirez. He glanced at Dunfield and his girlfriend. “”Sorry, but we’ll have to locate successors for you at some point. Or you will.”
“I suggest we get through the first five decades,” said Lillishenger. “There are no guarantees for any of this.”
“Buy your car, Eric,” said Dunfield. “I’ll look after it for you.”
“Good man. I’m sorry I looked at your girlfriend. No, the hell I’m not sorry.”
“She is special.”
“We all need somebody special so we can achieve our potential,” said Ogden.
“Not Gowan,” said Ramirez.
“You think you’re special?” she sneered. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be in the kitchen? It’s your turn to cook.”
“Sarah is doing something with hamburger meat and potato,” said Ramirez.
“Then you give her breakfast off tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll do breakfast tacos.”
“Do you know how to scramble an egg?” asked Gowan. “You know – take it out of the shell first.”
“Hey, I was born with an egg-beater in my hand.”
“And I thought it was your dick.”
“Captain, this girl is sending me wild.”
Stiers glanced at Gowan and smiled. “She sure has something,” he said. “I’ll agree with you there.”
They carried on discussing and perfecting their plans which essentially were to use the ship’s engines to send out an ever speeding pulse around the track which the Challenger would attempt to catch. Achieving light speeds would be possible and as long as they remained inside a vacuum, there would be no friction to either slow them down or cause heat. To keep them in place a containment field would be built using a low wattage current supported in emergencies by generators. Sealing the outer aluminium skin of the field would not be not easy and the doorway would have to open outwards so the suction effect of the vacuum kept it in place.
But much of this was pure theory and had never been attempted except in miniature form by Lillishenger’s experiments. Stiers wanted to get his hands on the most lethal poisons he could but chemical weaponry was new to the Captain and he had reservations about bringing the stuff on board. Lillishenger was also focussed on building up their financial reserves which she felt were important if they were to be in a position to purchase essential equipment and materials. Ramirez decided he would start work on getting the generators into action as soon as he could but he had been charged with finding a solution to the problem of what would happen to them inside the craft during time travel.
So after their evening meal Ramirez went back to the ship’s holos and began feeding in data. At first the results were disappointing but he had an idea he felt could work so he pressed on with work. In the house the rest of the enlarged team sat around and discussed obtaining Sarin. As far as they could ascertain, the most powerful variety was stored at the labs in Porton Down, England. The research facility was by then given over to medical and agricultural research but according to the incomplete records, a large quantity of the special Sarin was still stored there in 1994. After that date records were hazy on its location which pleased Ogden.
“Why?” asked Gowan.
“Because it means we could have stolen it,” said the Englishman.
“But there is no actual record?”
“This would be typical. The Government of the day would hardly announce the theft of Sarin,” he said. “It just seems that tracing its movements from that point becomes extremely difficult.”
“There were rumours it was moved to some facility in Australia or New Zealand,” said Lillishenger.
“Nobody in our time knows where it is. The general assumption is that the stuff was chemically neutralised then burned,” said Ogden.
“We need to know more before we go conducting raids all over the place,” said Stiers. “We can’t go sticking up scientists till we know for sure where the stuff is.”
“I shall be happy if we can localise it to a choice of two locations,” said Ogden. “Of course, we shall have to hit them both very close together in time so they are not forewarned.”
“Understood,” said the Captain.
At that point Ramirez burst in with a fat grin on his face. “Guess what I’ve done?” he said.
“Jacked off?” queried Gowan.
“Stop your flickering, set your hearts quickening,” he said, ignoring the jibe. “I have figured out – almost – how we can travel safely. All we need to do is turn the shields inward on ourselves to protect us from the high speeds involved. It will need some work but they can be adapted.”
“Will it leave us defenceless when we arrive?” asked the Captain.
“Yes, but it is reversible,” said Ramirez. “I believe it can be done. We’ll have to modulate them not to harm us but they can isolate the crew from the forces acting upon them.”
“I knew you had brains in your head,” said Lillishenger admiringly.
“Me too,” said Gowan. “I just thought they were in a different place.”
“Can this really work?” asked Ogden.
“Yes,” said Ramirez.
“I believe the lad is correct,” said Lillishenger. “After all, the shields are designed to create a protective field around the ship so why not transfer that to the inside. I think it’s an excellent idea.”
“There’s a lot more work involved,” said Ramirez. “Ogden would be best at working out the fine detail while I work on the generators outside.”
“Nice of you to say so,” said Ogden.
“Consider me the conductor while you are an excellent piano player,” said Ramirez.
“You’re tall enough to be a lightning conductor,” said Gowan. “Hang on. I’ll see if I can find some copper wire.”
“The boy has done well,” cautioned Lillishenger.
“Explain to me how this will work,” said Stiers. “Let’s just pretend for a moment that I am thick as an Amish barn.”
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