The Time Trousers of Professor Tempus: A Captain Space Hardcore Adventure

by Michael Ronson

  “All the pillars of my personality have been torn down,” he said, addressing me again.

  “No! You like fine,” I assured him.

  He shrugged. “It’s true. CALAPAW. Gone, demolished. It almost seems like a silly notion to me now.”

  “N...Noooo….No Space, don’t say that.”

  “Every pair of pants here was meant to diminish some part of me, wasn’t that it? Wasn’t that the game?” But Tempus only beamed back at him, enraptured. He was watching a man fall apart, take himself to pieces, and this time without the help of a well-stocked orchestra dais. Over his shoulder the whole view screen now seemed to have that same eerie shimmer but neither man seemed concerned. “Only my ‘And Wits’ remain and that’s this last trap; to try to find a way out of the whole god damned game. And I’ll fail at that too.”

  “You already have,” Tempus smiled.

  Space frowned. “But. That wasn’t all, was it? No. There was something else you wanted to accomplish with that last one, wasn’t there? Number three? The prison.”

  I looked over to Tempus and thought I saw something ugly flash in his eyes for a moment but it was gone too quickly. He raised his brows at Space and spread his hands out towards him. “Is this how you want to spend your last moments?”

  Space ignored his jibe, still pointedly not punching him. “There was something else you wanted to get done. Belson Erdinger,” he said the last two words carefully.

  That look again, unmistakeable this time and accompanied by a flinch. Space allowed himself a small smile and addressed himself to me. “Name ring a bell? Probably not. He’s the kind of man whose shadow is in witness protection. Even saying the name out loud carries a five year sentence in most worlds. A triple-fried bastard and no mistake. COAR trained to the highest ranks, turned traitor, turned mercenary, turned jailbird, turned underworld informant for COAR again. Quite the career trajectory that- a perfect circle, a full one eighty. It was my job to fish that particular turd out of the punch bowl when I sprung him from prison. If my memory of this seems so fresh it’s because I just re-lived that chapter of my life earlier today. Except this time around I killed him instead.”

  Space studied Tempus’ face as an unmistakeable smile played at the corners of his mouth, growing larger as he tried to suppress it, like a teenager’s erection.

  “And if you’re wondering why the prof here is so broken up about it, I’ll tell you. See, I decided that instead of playing the game anymore, I’d do some research into something that Erdinger said before I flushed him down the toilet.”

  I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Space made an urgent gesture towards the buffer outside the window. ‘No time to explain’ it said. He then gestured over to an info terminal on the floor. ‘Look at that info terminal’ it said. I did, and it was his own one, retrieved from the ship and seemingly showing some of his own old and redacted COAR files.

  “He mentioned the good professor; in fact he mentioned killing him in one of those mercenary jobs. You see, someone or other wanted to corner the market in time travel technology or maybe they just wanted to halt what he was up to, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Erdinger blew the ever-loving hell out of that space station, killing everyone aboard. Well, almost. One lifeboat was ejected before detonation and I’m giving out no prizes for guessing who was on board.”

  A silence descended on the deck as both men stared at each other, then Space pointed at him.

  “It was him. Tempus,” he said to me.

  “Yes. I got that. Thank you.”

  “But before he got out he did manage to send out a distress call. Out into the space around where he was-orbiting the sun of Heraldon. If that seems familiar-”

  “Bathby’s station,” I gasped.

  He nodded, his eyes fixed on Tempus now. We both looked to him.

  “That’s right. We went to Bathby’s station by mistake. We thought its strife was what we were called to help, but it was that other station- the one with Tempus here and all of his staff-”

  “And wife,” Tempus spoke quietly.

  “And wife,” Space agreed, “who actually needed the help. And that- that- is our great crime here. We saved the wrong day.”

  Space shrugged at me and looked to Tempus. His look was asking Tempus to challenge any part of his story. Then he used some words to ask Tempus to challenge any part of his story.

  “Isn’t that it, hm? All of this? This trickery- this revenge ploy- it’s not for profit, not even exactly for revenge. It’s for being a hero at the wrong address. This whole ploy- elegant as it is- rids the time-space continuum of the man who blew up your life and the man whose only crime is to have disappointed you.”

  That ugly flash in Tempus’ eyes now contorted every part of the man’s face.

  His words came sudden and spiteful now, hissing out of him like steam from a broken pipe.

  “Your crime is in acting like a hero! It’s pretending that we can be saved, that you have the answers. Oh, I hate Erdinger, alright, but he was always just a damned murderer. You? You have the audacity to fail so badly then act like the hero, to throw yourself this lavish party in honour of yourself. That’s what this whole exercise is about. Didn’t you see? The slightest change to what you have done and it all crumples. You have lived your life skating over the cracking ice of the universe and you pretend that it's by sheer force of will or charisma or or CLAPATA or CALAPA or whatever the hell you call it that you can keep upright. Well, I decided that it was time that someone reached up from under that ice and brought you down to where the rest of us live. Welcome to the other side, Captain. Welcome to the place where a wink and a smile and cheesy one liner and an infinite supply of dumb luck doesn’t make you a legend, Captain. This is the place where you end, Captain, where you fail. This is where you see it coming, knowing its inevitability, knowing that neither you nor your friend nor any other force in the whole random universe can stop what comes next. Send out a distress signal! See what happens.”

  He trembled with anger then, trembled like a chihuahua, but there was more terror and pathos in him than with that or any dog breed. I saw him then, emptied out, angry and hurt. His purpose laid bare, I saw him try to steady himself. He looked down, breathed deeply, put on his arch-villain veneer, but his sneer and indifference sat on him like a cracked mask now.

  “I make it, roughly two minutes till that thing hits us,” he said and pointed to the buffer.

  “What happens then?” Space asked.

  “Well-” Tempus started but Space cut him off with a brisk gesture. Instead he was looking at me, eyes blazing.

  “Wasn’t talking to you. You’ve set the game and you just had your monologue. That’s your lot. I’m done with you. Now there’s some imminent death and a countdown, and god damnit I still want to go to this party. Ebenezer- what happens then?”

  “He already informed a past version of himself-”

  Space made a pained face.

  “The buffer makes reality everything he has just set in-”

  Space grimaced.

  “We lose.”

  “How badly?”

  “‘Written out of reality’-badly”

  “That is badly. Options.”

  “We can’t outrun that thing. The bomb is set to go off soon anyway. Killing Tempus won’t stop anything.”

  “Options, damnit!”

  “I’m thinking out loud, here.”

  “Think faster. Think better.”

  “Faster? Actually, we could use his trousers to slow down time here and-”

  But Space was pointing over to Tempus who was already gleefully ripping pieces of circuitry off of his trousers.

  “Alright, belay that. We’ve got a time buffer coming to re-write history, a portal leading to a point before time and space and a bomb that’s going to trap us within a moment for eternity. But we have….uh...some spiffy trousers and some uneaten cake.”

  He looked at me, haggard but hopeful and I could do no
thing. Every part of me groaned with pain. I reached for some last ditch magical idea, some hole in Tempus’ plan, there had to be. But my mind was blank, my mouth worked silently and as I looked at Space I could see that hope drain out of his eyes. In the corner of the room Tempus made a display of sitting loudly down on a chair, stretching and taking in the show. I saw Space ball up his fists as colour rose from his collar.

  “One and a half minutes, roughly? No options? No escape?” he addressed himself to me and straightened himself up.

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “Time enough to show this bastard who I really am, wouldn’t you say?”

  A flicker of fear passed over the professor’s face but he papered over it quickly.

  The Captain rolled up his sleeves puffed out his chest and took a decisive step forward.

  I sighed. I suppose it was inevitable, justified even. I had expected him to lay a beating into Tempus sooner, really.

  “It will change nothing,” Tempus cried from his chair.

  “It’s who I am,” Space said.

  He puffed out his chest, flexed his biceps.

  I saw Tempus flinch away as the Captain balled up his fists powerfully and-

  -Grabbed onto the chromoton desynchronizer.

  He took a solid hold of the casing of the thing and hefted it experimentally up. He could take the weight of it. He set it back down on the ground for a moment.

  “Sir?” I questioned. He barely turned, instead eyed that last portal that quivered in the middle of the room.

  “Nasty bloody thing, this, eh? Could go off any time? Well, I can’t just let it go off and take me, him and my second in command down. Can I? (Bloody good to see you again, as it goes, old man.)”

  “Sir-”

  “And besides,” he said, inching the thing over to the portal in little hefts, “we can’t have an anomaly like that just out here in the middle of space. Got to be taken care of.”

  He had it on the lip of the last portal now and he patted the bomb’s casing almost affectionately. He looked like a man readying himself for a brief but unpleasant task.

  “And it’s what we do, Ebenezer. We get rid of problems. We dispose of bombs. We help out. And if we don’t? God damnit we try. And that means something.”

  He looked over at Tempus then for just a second, before he took the full weight of the bomb in his arms.

  “One thing, Tempus. With all of this time hopping going on, did it never occur to you to go back and save your station your own damned self?”

  He paused there, as the new universe closed in on us, paying it no heed. He let the question hang in the air, not an accusation but a genuine inquiry. Tempus’ mouth mashed at words that never came out and Space’s voice took on a softer tone. He even smiled, one leg poised on the lip of oblivion, a bomb cradled in his arms

  “I get it. Don’t worry. When you escaped the first time you must’ve panicked. Didn’t take anyone with you, did you? Couldn’t. And going back to that? Seeing your own failings and risking it all? I, of all people right now, can tell you that would’ve been painful. Better to toil on this plan and wipe out a couple of other fellows. Still, something to think about. Y’know- as you win.”

  The buffer wavered at the window, bearing down on us like a tsunami in space.

  The Captain looked back at me as he braced himself against the portal.

  “Wait!” I cried. There had to be something I could do. “What...What should I remember you as?” I finished lamely.

  “Remember me as….” But he smiled then, sadly, shook his head and glanced at the time buffer. “Just try to remember me, old man. That’ll do.”

  The Captain stepped through the portal, which fizzed closed around him and I looked out of the station window at the time buffer, seconds away from hitting me.

  All I could think is that this is really it. This is really, rea

  The End

  The Life and Times of Captain Ebenezer Funkworthy:

  A Journal

  By Michael Ronson

  Chapter One

  The First Chapter

  Subtitle: A Perfectly Ordinary Day

  Everything in the universe was in perfect order, I had to say.

  The stars streaked by outside of the window in an orderly fashion, carrying us towards our destination precisely on Time (though, in point of fact it was the engines, not the stars that were transporting us, I was being poetic). I looked at the clock overhead and noted with some small satisfaction that we were four minutes and thirty two seconds ahead of schedule. My crew looked alert (but not too alert) and efficient in their spiffy beige jumpsuits and the air temperature was just a shade under warm. Everything was optimal.

  “Captain Funkworthy!” my second in command approached me urgently.

  I turned at his alarmist tone. “Please calm yourself on the bridge. That was quite the ejaculation, Perkins. What seems to be the problem?”

  She apologized to me profusely for her outburst and, after promising to restrict herself to decaffeinated coffee for the week, I asked what all the alarm was for. It was alarming.

  “We’re approaching the Kronis station now,” she said.

  All the furore for that. I shook my head and eyed Perkins. She was new to my ship and was perhaps more accustomed to other COAR craft that were used to more drama and shouting and shooting. Ghastly. We here on the colourfully named ‘Cruiser 847.3-BB33’ were far more concerned with punctuality, diplomacy, avoidance of fights, tactical retreats, staying out of things and upholding health and safety standards. We hadn’t fired a shot in over a thousand days and we hadn’t been fired upon in over two hundred. This was the makings of a new record and I intended to keep it up in our latest mission.

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Thank you for the beverage advice, Captain Funkworthy. I really was quite out of hand in retrospect.”

  I nodded, waved her away and turned back to the word puzzle that was vexing me so much today. I couldn’t seem to settle in my chair somehow, even though I had spent fourty seven minutes upon its purchase and installation ensuring that the lumbar support absolutely superb. It could have been that the crossword was too stimulating, but that answer didn’t satisfy. My crewman’s hysterical hollering didn’t seem to be the cause of my unease either and I have already noted the perfectly pleasant air temperature. Something about the Kronis station was nagging at me. Yet there was no reason for it to do so.

  I had been looking forward to this assignment for weeks- maybe as many as fivepoint five. It was a scientific monitoring expedition. I know. Each word of that is more pleasurable than the last, is it not? To advance the cause of science by quietly and unobtrusively monitoring their actions? If I may correctly quote Wordsworth: “OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!”

  If only one could be so lucky every mission. Our last excursion had been escorting a freighter carrying some valuable medical supplies through a quadrant of Space known to be frequented by pirates and other undesirable elements. We didn’t see any, naturally, but the threat was palpable and the crew had been on edge the whole time. It gave me acid reflux just thinking about it.

  That same nervy, gaseous quality is what was running through me now, ever since Kronis was mentioned. It was a curious state of affairs. This is why I retired from the bridge to come to my personal quarters (where I sit presently) to detail the day’s events in this journal (where I write presently).

  I’m still not sure about this writing lark. I mean, I know that my narrative has plenty of action (just consider that outburst of hysteria earlier) and I am fastidious in my recording of every possible pertinent detail, writing just does not sit well with me. Well, I say writing; I have to dictate this thing, what with that problem I have with typing. But that’s not important.

  Even dictating this I still think it’s a shade on the egotistic side to collect these kinds of stories, though I do so under the orders of the ship’s councillor to solve these feelings of unease. No l
uck there. If anything this diary and my frustrating attempts at creative writing have increased my anxiety. My thoughts seem to go in circles. The same images, the same figures, the same names, and that haunting feeling of deja vu.

  Kronis. What could bother me about that? It could be the nature of the anomaly itself. Temporal anomalies could be quite a challenge and the phenomenon there- especially given its unique geographical place in the universe- could be quite a challenge for people to consider. But even that explanation was unsatisfactory to me. I adore puzzles and reflecting on scientific curiosities takes up a good chunk of my free tempus. No, the answer was elsewhere.

  Was it something from the past, then? Again, this line of thought seems fruitless to me. I seldom have travelled in this area, so there would be nothing for me to Remembermeremember.

  And there goes my headache again, right on cue. The damn thing (I apologize for the strong language) has been popping up more and more recently.

  It seems that everytime I try to isolate the cause of this anxiety, it triggers that same pain in me. It feels almost as if my mind is being ripped in two. Enough writing. This can surely not help my pounding head. I shall wrap this entry up for the night, take my sedative and in the morn, shall be at the destination.

  As I wrote at the start of this, everything is optimal.

  Everything is optimal. It is important to remember.

  Chapter Two

  Arrival at Kronis Station/

  Subtitle: Everything is Still Fine

  Strange and fanciful dreams about cowboys and detectives fade as my alarm gently wakes me from sleep. This is a good sign, since I avoided the nightmares for another night, hopefully banishing them for good. There’s no point in remember me ing silly notions. Why my mind seems to be circling earth’s history is a curiosity, certainly, but I set that aside for the day’s events.

  Striding onto the deck, I momentarily forget to greet my staff, so busy am I with taking in the sight of the Kronis station. The term installation would, I feel be a better name for it and I take a note to send this correction to COAR HQ. I have been assured that my frequent semantic corrections are valued. And after all, installation fit the sight far better. No mere singular station, the site was made up of six re-purposed COAR listening stations arranged in equidistant orbit around the colourful swirling vortex that sits at the centre. The centre of all the speculation was the glowing orb that these six (and now my own ship) revolved around - anomaly 37/84-E (although I had cheekily begun to call it by its unofficial nickname ‘84-E’ instead).It was modest in size- roughly the dimensions of a three giga-tonne plasma explosion but the intricately shifting ripples and tears and vortexes that played across its surface were fascinating to behold. It was like a roiling sea of colour, mixed with an explosion, mixed with a tear in the fabric of space har and time that had the dimensions of a huge sphere. From the surface of it, rings and pulses of colourful radiation spooled out, like ripples in a pond. It was almost impossible to look away from it, hypnotic and shifting as it was.