by Jimmy Guieu
That evening a squadron left the space station alerted by the General Staff of a nearby city. They were supposed to get control over the last inhabitants of M’zom who had been affected by the raging madness. Siomak and his leaders of the League of Independent Worlds had survived. The terrible war of planetary conquests told by history would not take place. Hundreds of millions of innocent beings would not die at the murderous hands of Siomak’s hordes. The enslaved planets would soon be liberated.
Thanks to the Earthlings from the Future an entire chapter in the history of unknown civilizations had been unwritten.
CHAPTER NINE
After spending the night as the Grand Instructor’s guests, Kariven and his three companions met their host for breakfast. After sacrificing themselves to this pleasant necessity, our friends went to the astrodome where the Retro-timeship was waiting in the giant hangar.
Just when they felt puzzled at not finding Lieutenant Rudy Clark and his men, the latter came back from the white city. Commander Taylor looked at them with an amused smile. But when he saw the six ravishing young women accompanying them his smile disappeared.
“What is this?” he growled at Lieutenant Clark, nodding at the pre-Bimkamians holding onto their arms.
Each of the women was holding a small case.
Lieutenant Clark gulped awkwardly, gently pulled his arm away from his brown companion and coughed before muttering, “This, Commander Taylor, is… These are our… wives.”
Commander Taylor scowled, the veins popped out on his neck like he was about to have a stroke, and he barked, “What? Your… Your wives?”
Lieutenant Clark looked embarrassed and did not know how to react. As for his GIs, they did not look confident. Kariven, Harrington, Streiler and Glanya looked at each other with great surprise at this revelation.
Hornuk stared at the young pre-Bimkamians, obviously trying to capture their thoughts. It did not take long for him to understand and he smiled, shaking his head good-naturedly. With the hope of putting an end to this precarious situation, very embarrassing for Lieutenant Clark, he put his hand on Commander Taylor’s shoulder and transmitted this thought telepathically:
“During our absence and taking legal advantage of the free time you gave them, Commander, your men met these young women…”
The American officer raised his eyes and looked askance at the smiling face of the giant Hornuk.
“As often happens the natives of the planet, identical to us—proportionally—take wives from members of our race. That’s what your men did last night, Commander.”
“You… You’re married, Lieutenant?” Taylor sputtered, wide-eyed.
“Listen, Commander… I… I’m not the only one… My men are also…”
“That’s rich!” the superior officer shouted. “And didn’t you know that your marriage needed my consent? Military regulations of the…”
“Military regulations of the USA are not applicable in the Secondary Period,” Professor Harrington remarked judiciously, not without a smirk. “Making a nun…”
“One reason! One reason! You’re funny, Prof! I’m going to look great when I tell them that my GIs left their wives back in the Secondary Period! My superiors will tell me to open a dating service.”
Lieutenant Clark, who was fiddling nervously with the buttons of his pea coat, took the liberty to explain, “It’s that… Commander, with your permission, we… we’d like to bring our wives with us.”
That was too much!
While the three scientists and Hornuk burst out laughing, Taylor loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He was almost choking on his outrage. Before exploding, as he was about to do, Professor Harrington intervened again.
“Come on, Commander. Calm down and give them your consent. I’m sure that Lieutenant Clark and his men thought long and hard before tying the knot. You’re the superior officer on our mission, but it belongs to Streiler and me. We’re asking you to forget about regulations and authorize the immigration of these six charming ladies who will soon become citizens of the USA.”
Commander Taylor opened his mouth, hesitated, held back the flood of cursing he was about to let loose, shrugged his shoulders and in a gruff voice said, “OK, OK, I’m just a little soldier and you’re the President of the USA! Do whatever you want and you take responsibility for it.”
“About time,” Professor Harrington beamed, turning right away to Clark and his men. “Congratulations, Lieutenant and you, too, my friends. Your wives are gorgeous! Now get on board and prepare for takeoff.”
He thought quickly and with a twinkle in his eye asked, “At least do they know how to cook?”
Everyone said goodbye to the Grand Instructor, who did not hide his emotions. He was able to appreciate the real virtue and noble sentiments of the Earthlings from the future.
“Goodbye, Hornuk,” Kariven shook his hand. “May you live in peace and pursue your important civilizing work for the great benefit of humanity.”
He climbed the steps into the hatch and gave one final wave to the giant. A few seconds later the Retro-timeship took off.
Sitting between Commander Taylor and Professor Harrington, in front of the control panel, Kariven was simply staring at the Physiotempograph. The yellow, plastic ribbon was starting to come out of the spinning drum. The 1,000-year periods were reeling off at breakneck speed as the flexible ribbon wound around a second drum.
“We’re going to be crossing the Tertiary Period again very soon,” Professor Harrington noted, as he scrutinized the red marks indicating tens of millions of years.
Kariven suddenly looked up, his entire being filled with an intense emotion. “You… I’m such an idiot! Harrington, my friend, my old friend,” he babbled with tears in his eyes. “How was I so blind not to have thought of it before? We’re going to save Leyla! Yes, save her from being killed by the cyclops.”
“How’s that, Kariven? Explain…”
“The Physiotempograph and this ribbon unrolling the fractions of Time visited by us have opened my eyes. If we go back to the Tertiary Period and stop the Retro-timeship when we went out chasing the cyclops, won’t we be living there before Leyla was killed?”
“Without a doubt,” Harrington confirmed with great interest.
“So, we just have to relive the events up to that fateful moment and jump in at the right time to save Leyla…”
“I get it!” Harrington exclaimed. “Commander,” he ordered, “look very carefully at the ribbon and stop the ship when you see the end of the blue part that represents our trip to Shâmali. I’m saying the end because the start of the blue part we see now—our trip being made in reverse—must logically represent our final days in the Tertiary.”
“OK,” the officer answered curtly.
The two rotating drums, one feeding the ribbon into the other, relentlessly spun out the time. Kariven and Glanya kept their eyes riveted on the yellow ribbon, not uttering a sound. It was like their life was hanging on this narrow strip of plastic crowded with lines and numbers.
All of a sudden they heard a click. The ribbon had switched from yellow to blue.
Commander Taylor pulled a lever on the panel and pressed a button. The Retro-timeship vibrated for a second. The hazy glow outside the ship turned into the black of space. Stars twinkled motionlessly and the blurry, shaky ball that the ship flew over formed into a huge globe with strange reliefs, different than what we know today.
The Retro-timeship plunged directly toward the planet.
While Commander Taylor leveled out the ship in the terrestrial atmosphere to follow the curve of the planet, Professor Harrington leaned over the blue ribbon and nodded his head, “We’ve stopped at the 98th hour of our previous visit.”
After a quick calculation he was able to add, “If my memory serves me correctly, this should correspond to the moment when we left with our Bimkamian friends to help the Lemurians attacked by the cyclops. OK, stay at a high altitude, Commander, and turn on the anti-detection sh
ield. We shouldn’t be seen by Leyla or Torka, the Military Operations Chief. We’ll just be silent, invisible witnesses to scenes from our first visit until the right moment.”
Commander Taylor slowed the ship down. Shâmali was soon beneath them. The sight of the impressive Bimkamian base where they had spent so many lovely hours—but also painful moments—brought back strong emotions.
On Professor Harrington’s orders the ship hovered high over the white city bathed in the sweltering heat. Thanks to the viewer the buildings were crisp and clear, as if the observers were only 50 yards above them.
“Look,” Glanya’s voice was flat as she pointed at the astrodome.
Stunned, Streiler unconsciously heard this word. Everyone gathered around them on the right side of the transparent cockpit and held their breath when they saw their own ship on the runway next to the sphere.
“Well, well,” Professor Harrington smiled, “that’s really the Retro-timeship we see, but the Retro-timeship of the past or its ghost if you prefer.”
“Leyla!” Kariven shouted out of his daze.
“And that’s me!” Commander Taylor was completely befuddled.
Indeed, Leyla and Kariven, followed by Torka, Commander Taylor, Harrington, Streiler and Glanya had just appeared on the airstrip. They were going to their respective ships in order to rescue the city being besieged by the monsters.
“This is crazy,” Streiler whispered.
“I wonder what’d we do… or what our ghosts would do if we suddenly showed up in front of them,” Commander Taylor mused.
“We don’t have time to experiment,” Harrington noted. “Let’s stick to following them, to following us I should say and we’ll figure it out.”
The doubles from the Past boarded the Retro-timeship while Leyla and Torka headed toward the first sphere. On the runway the squadron of Bimkamian spaceships was ready to take off. The Retro-timeship went first, followed by Torka at the head of his formation.
Very high up in the sky the ship watching its own ghost flew off behind the squadron.
“So, we’re going to follow them like this until the fateful moment?” Kariven was losing patience.
“Not necessarily. We can speed up Time and choose whatever moment we want.”
“Then I propose we stop when we left with Leyla on board to capture the cyclops in order to study their physiology.”
“We can do that,” Professor Harrington approved.
Once again he studied the blue ribbon on the Physiotempograph, adjusted the sliders for the day and hour and them ordered Commander Taylor to lift into space. The Retro-timeship shuddered and the needles on the different colored control screens swung back and forth. The day finally disappeared and gave way to the dull gray of the Time Spiral.
When the ship came back to Earth and hovered over the city its occupants saw the phantom Retro-timeship on the ground again and their doubles crossing the astrodome. Kariven’s heart throbbed when he saw himself offering his arm to Leyla to help her into the ship. When the hatch closed behind Streiler and Glanya, the ship took off.
“Good. Now it’s up to us,” Kariven said. “Speed up, Commander. We’re going to get ahead of our ship from the past and bombard the tribe of cyclops that we captured before. If they’re slaughtered, Leyla and our doubles will go capture different ones. And the cyclops that killed Leyla won’t be among them since we’ll wipe out the whole tribe!”
“OK.”
Commander Taylor sped up and left the ship from the Past far behind. They soon found the cyclops’ camp on the banks of the river. As expected the hairy monsters were staring at the fire where their fame was cooking.
“Drop a bunch of TNT bombs!” Kariven ordered. “No need to use the atomic warheads—these should be more than enough.”
Taylor pressed a black button on edge of a wheel atop the control panel. Ten big bombs fell upon the jungle. A series of terrifying explosions blasted the land, throwing huge chunks of dirt in the air, pulverizing the monsters’ camp and from the red blaze spreading thick smoke over the deadly forest.
When the brown cloud had dissipated a little, the landscape was unrecognizable. A crater, 250 yards in diameter, had replaced the small clearing. The river was pouring into the chasm, covering the remains of the cyclops tribe with a swirling, liquid shroud. The 20 or 30 red-haired monsters had been literally shredded by the bombs. One part of the jungle was still on fire.
Half an hour later the phantom Retro-timeship showed up, circled the water-filled crater a few times and then flew off.
“Hooray!” Kariven shouted. “Once again we’ve changed the course of Time!”
Still at a respectable distance they followed the Retro-timeship Number 1 and saw it drop a sleeping bomb on a tribe encamped at the foot of a rocky cliff. The monsters collapsed soon afterward, anesthetized by the gas. Leyla and Kariven and their ghost friends stepped out in masks after the ship landed and loaded the sleeping hideous creatures in their steel cages.
The Retro-timeship Number 2 was hovering high above Shâmali. Night blanketed the city with a dark veil. The Milky Way, surrounded by glimmering constellations, crawled across the sky from one horizon to the other. The explorers, under the effect of the transparency serum, were preparing to act.
“I think we were sleeping at this time? Remember, Harrington…”
“I think so too, Kariven,” he agreed.
“We can go now.”
The Retro-timeship descended silently on the northern edge of the astrodome and landed barely 30 feet away from the phantom timeship. Huddled around their ship our friends were whispering together.
Kariven stepped over to Glanya and whispered, “Do you think that your disintegrator rifle is powerful enough for what we have to do?”
“Have no fear. Its energy charge will hold up without a problem… and we’ll be able to use it for a long time to come.”
Kariven got in front of his friends and pointing the weapon at the Retro-timeship Number 1 pressed the trigger. A bright ray swept across the mammoth that became a blinding bulk for five seconds, like a heap of molten metal… then disappeared.
The magnificent ship had been turned into thermal and light energy!
All that was left of the ghost ship was its memory.
The explorers rushed back into their ship—the real one—and waited. They were sure that the blinding flash from the disintegration would alert the guards in the control tower. Holed up in the cabin they left Lieutenant Clark—who had not been given the transparency serum—in charge of meeting the giants who were already running toward them.
Rudy Clark explained to the head guard that he had accidentally shot off a flare while making his rounds. For proof he showed the bulky flare gun that was lying on the ground at his feet.
“I was so surprised,” the American lied telepathically, “that I dropped the thing.”
The giant looked puzzled, hesitated, but finally had to accept this unlikely story. He shrugged his shoulders and went away with his men.
“Ooh,” Kariven let out his breath when Clark came back into the cabin where his superiors were hiding. “He swallowed that pretty easily.”
“Don’t you feel anything after disintegrating your own ship and the GIs who were inside?” Glanya asked nervously.
“Yes,” Kariven admitted, “but why worry about this ‘attack’ when Lieutenant Clark and his men are alive here in our Retro-timeship, the original, the one we’re in right now in the past?”
“Don’t think about it anymore,” Commander Taylor advised. “That’s only the first stage of our plan. Come on.”
They left their hiding place and walked cautiously to Shâmali, ready to hit the ground at the first sign of trouble. Glanya was squeezing Streiler’s arm convulsively. In her right hand she held the disintegrator gun that had just destroyed the phantom timeship.
They got to the wide streets of the white city that was flooded with light and took a long detour around the central square. The palace of
Leyla, the Grand Instructor of Earth, shimmered like a jewel under the beams of the pivoting spotlights.
The two guards posted at the main entrance had no clue that in the nocturnal silence there were transparent people entering the palace through a hidden door known only to Leyla and her twin sister. Guided by Glanya the Earthlings hurried through the deserted rooms until they came to the hallway with bedrooms where they slept not very long ago.
Kariven took Glanya’s weapon and opened the first door, whispering, “Charity begins at home…”
Despite his cheerful smile, nobody was fooled. They all felt as fearfully anxious as he did. Kariven entered his room, followed by his friends, and stopped a few feet from the bed in which another Jean Kariven was sleeping peacefully.
Professor Harrington swallowed hard before approaching the sleeper and shaking him gently. Then he stepped back into a dark corner with the others. Kariven’s double opened his eyes and looked around. He saw nothing but his dark, empty room.
Harrington snuck across the floor, crawled out onto the balcony and slammed the window shut. Kariven’s double rubbed his eyes and then jumped out of bed, lured by the unusual noise. Professor Harrington plastered himself against the wall on the balcony.
Almost at point blank range, Kariven fired on his double with the disintegrator gun. A bright flash lit up the balcony. When the time explorers’ eyes recovered from the burst of light, they saw that once again their experiment had succeeded. Only the real Kariven, with the rifle at his side, remained. He would be able to take the place of his ghost.
Quickly they played out the same macabre scene in the other bedrooms before each of them went quietly back to their rooms that had been so strangely “hijacked” from their dead doubles.
Streiler and Glanya stood in the empty hallway of the palace looking at other passionately. Glanya’s double, actually belonging to this time, could not be disintegrated at any price. It was the one who had left Shâmali with Streiler who had to be…
Holding out her rifle Glanya stepped closer to the Austrian engineer. “We have to be strong enough to separate, Kurt. My present body is actually just an illusion. My double’s body and mind form another Glanya, the real one, the one sleeping in the next room this very minute… and who loves you like I love you.”