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

by Michael Ronson

  The scientist shook his head to all of the suggestions, each more vigorously than the last. “I’m sorry we don’t have any of that. We have an airlock, of course, in the cargo bay.”

  I shook my head at that. “Carrying this thing all the way there? That would take far too long.”

  “When’s it due to go off?” Space demanded of Erdinger.

  “On the hour.” Erdinger replied wretchedly.

  “That gives us two minutes.” Tempus pointed out. Trust a man named Tempus to have a clock to hand. I wondered what kind of research this station was doing. Not killer robots, I hoped.

  Space turned to me and shook his head ruefully. “This thing started out with me, you and Tempus stood around a bomb, I guess it’s fitting it should end that way too.”

  “What?” I cried, almost in unison with Tempus but Space wasn’t listening to either of us. He had fallen into a chin-stroking reverie.

  “Wait, what was it that I just said?” he asked the air.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Yes!”

  “You’re asking me what you just said.” I clarified.

  “I can’t keep track of all my pearls of wisdom; that’s what you’re for. Now think!”

  “You said….‘It started out with me, you and Tempus’?”

  “No, no, no. After that!”

  “‘Stood around a bomb’?”

  He shook his head, made a dismissive hand gesture.

  “‘Fitting it should end like this’?”

  His eyes lit up and he looked up at me. “Again!” he demanded.

  “‘Fitting it should-’?”

  “‘Fitting’! Fitting. I said fitting! That’s it! I’m a genius.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fitting. Don’t you see? Fitting. Fitting like a glove. Glove. Gloves are clothes you wear on your hands. Hands; the feet of your arms, as I always say. Feet. fit, fit, feet. What fits feet? Socks. Socks- socks cover your shins. Where are your shins? On your legs. What fits your legs?” he looked at me expectantly. All eyes on the deck did.

  “....Trousers?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Trousers!”

  “Your big breakthrough is...trousers?”

  “Here you go!” he cried and thrust his trousers into my waiting arms. My god but the man could disrobe quickly in a crisis.

  “I feel like you could have gotten to that more quickly, Space,” I noted.

  He waved my words away. “All part of the process. The second part? Get Erdinger’s trousers off of him.” he cried triumphantly, hands on his hips and clad only in his Y-fronts.

  “Is this really how you want to die?” Erdinger asked from the floor.

  “Nobody’s dying today, Erdinger. That’s the whole point.”

  “Not even me?” Skepticism from the cyborg.

  “Not today.”

  A desperate hope filled the cyborg’s eyes as a mischief filled Space’s. I wondered what he was up to. Whatever it was, his assurance seemed to grease the bomber’s bionic wheels a little bit and it was less troublesome to stuff the man into Space’s complex breeches.

  With about thirty seconds of life left we six Hardcores, some baffled scientists, Erdinger and myself stood uncertainly around a bomb. Only one of us was beaming with confidence and it wasn’t me. He bundled the bomb into Erdinger’s arms and adjusted some knobs on his trousers with a barely contained glee in his eye .

  Erdinger looked down at his situation as dubiously as a man carrying a bomb would. But any notions he had to escape or protest were put to rest as he looked around at the many Hardcores that surrounded him.

  “Nobody dies today.” There was a hint of a question in his voice, a hint of pleading as he looked at the Captain.

  Space smiled at him warmly. “Absolutely, Erdinger, absolutely. I promise you that I will see you again.”

  And with that he depressed a button on his belt and in a shimmering halo of light Erdinger and his bomb winked out of existence, carried to another place, another time.

  It was a strange thing, that few seconds of anticipation. We had all gotten so anxious about the coming explosion that, with it teleported away, we all just...stood there awkwardly for a while, looking at each other. There was no dramatic explosion, no final witty bon mot, just….an absence. Eventually it occurred to us that we were safe.

  There was silence on the deck of the station as we all let out a collective breath. The threat was over, the battle won. Space himself- or this version of him who had come into existence just a few minutes ago- seemed more than relieved. He sank deep into a chair, let out a ragged breath and said, almost to himself, “And that’s quite enough deathtraps for one day.”

  I let him enjoy the peace for as long as I could.

  “You know you’re going to have to explain this whole thing to me soon,” I said.

  “Funkworthy, old friend, I truly would not know where to start.”

  “At the beginning?” I suggested.

  “The beginning of time?” he raised his eyebrows laconically.

  “Why the hell would you start any story at the beginning of time?”

  “Well, I mean, you could feasibly-”

  “What would possess you to say that?”

  “You’ll understand. In time.”

  “Why are you emphasizing that word?” I demanded.

  “It’s been a looooong day. Funkworthy. You don’t know how long.”

  “Are you being arch with me, Captain? Are you doing puns right now? I’ll remind you that this hasn’t been a relaxing twenty four hours for me.”

  “But time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “I have just...just so many questions for you right now and I feel almost like you’re trying to have some kind of post-adventure banter with me when I really need you to focus and explain just one main element of why I just teleported on your trousers to a place where your clones are beating up a cyborg with a bomb.”

  He smiled and nodded into the middle distance. “Time makes fools of us all…”

  I was busy making a strangled angry throat noise when I noticed the Tempus. He coughed to announce his presence. He stepped hesitantly forward, looked strangely at the two of us.

  “You said, I believe, that this started with you, me and your friend here.”

  Space was still smiling into the middle distance.

  “He did.” I answered for him.

  “Then does that mean...we succeed?”

  “In doing what exactly?” I asked, maybe a shade too irritably.

  “I’m sorry. I should say. I’m a scientist working in the field of time travel.” He gestured to the different Hardcores that littered the bridge. “I think about it a lot. We’ve all of us joked about some future version of ourselves coming back to us to, to give advice or warnings or what have you. Is...is that what’s happening here? Did we three meet in some future timeline?”

  Space looked wearily into the face of the man and for a second I glimpsed an unusually complex set of emotions pass over his face. A flash of real hatred, regret, pain, pity, happiness. “Something like that,” he said in a low voice.

  Tempus must have seen it too. He cast a look back at his crew, his family, his friends (and, to a lesser extent, a superspy and a World War One flying ace) and looked back at Space, furrowing his brow trying to piece together some possible future. “That bomb...You said we met over a bomb….Did something terrible happen? Did-did we….Did I....”

  Space pressed his hands onto his knees and brought himself standing with some little effort. “It didn’t happen, doc. It didn’t happen anymore,” he said lightly.

  But the doctor was too caught up in his own thoughts. He looked around the station, deep in hypothetical thought. “We three met in the future. Just us… Not anyone else...That means….My god if anything would have happened to them I would...I’d just...”

  Space gripped the man firmly by the shoulder and looked evenly at him. “It didn’t. It won’t.” He shoo
k the man once more, as if to seal the finality of his words into him. I felt like a spectator all of a sudden, like I was peering into a some intimate moment of closure. But I guessed that this was how Tempus felt too, as we were both sporting nearly identical confused expressions.

  “It’s done,” Space said again to himself.

  “It’s done?”

  Space nodded. Then pointed his chin up to the rest of the scientist’s crew.

  Tempus, his brows still furrowed, nodded curtly to himself and finally turned and walked back to them. Space followed the man with his eyes and let out a long, relieved breath. I let Space bask in that moment as long as I could.

  “Can you answer me just one question?” I asked.

  He looked up at me with a wry smile. “Let’s see.”

  I looked around the room. “Those trousers, I think I understand that they’re some time travel device from the future- your future- and they’re what let you come back here with your backup. I get that. The only question is- with them gone (and I won’t even ask where you sent that Erdinger fellow) one burning question remains.”

  He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “How in the blazes are you going to return your predecessors to their times?”

  His eyes grew wide as the smile slid off of his face. He shot a look round at them and back to me.

  “Let’s get out of here” he hissed urgently at me and grabbed me by the arm, tried to bundle me toward the laboratory door.

  “Captain, we have to return them to their place in history.” I protested. “Do you realize the ramifications of removing people from their times? Remedial chaos theory tells us that-” But he cut me off with a moan as he slapped his hand roughly to his face.

  “Bloody god-damned nonsensical time-damn-travel! It never ends! We were done!” he moaned from behind a hand. He peered at me through his fingers, his voice suddenly childlike with hope. “Can’t we just keep them about?”

  “No!”

  “Bloody handy these chaps. Good company too!” he shot me an encouraging smile.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “That one’s got a mace!”

  “Even so. They have to go back.”

  “Oh don’t be jealous, Funkworthy. I’d still keep you on as my number two. Even with this stiff competition.”

  “It’s not that, sir, it’s more about the fundamental nature of the time space continuum.”

  “That’s what you always say when I threaten to replace you.”

  “So you are trying to replace me.”

  He nodded over to the chap in the tuxedo. “Oh come on, Ebenezer. Look at him. Stylish, elegant, always ready with a witty line. Can’t pronounce the letter ‘S’ for toffee but I think he’s had a stroke. Can you imagine the adventures we’d get into?”

  “You have to return them.”

  “Well I’ve lost my trousers, Funkworthy. I can’t.” He folded his arms tightly.

  I looked at him evenly.

  “Can’t,” he said again but more so.

  He looked obstinately at me, but other eyes were turning to us now too. Old eyes, hundreds of years old. The other Hardcores, now presumably bored by the lack of violence and the sheer absence of explosions were looking around for guidance. So too were the scientists who were now safe and sound but with some time displaced heroes in their workplace.

  “Let’s. Go.” Space hissed at me again

  I took a different path. “Tempus!” I called. The scientist scurried over quickly. “We need to speak to you.”

  ---=◈◆⬤◆??◆⬤◆◈=---

  In the end it was relatively painless.

  The good professor- a man already knocking on the door of time travel breakthroughs- swore an oath out of gratitude to myself and Space that he would keep the errant Hardcores of both space stations and that, as soon as he was able he would return them to their time. Space swore that he would visit them on any weekends he was available and, within ten minutes we were ready to leave Tempus’ station (and one of the stranger afternoons of my life) for good. It was only when we were on our way to the station’s shuttle bay that Space slowed down for a second and stalled. An idea seemed to form.

  He took Tempus aside.

  “Professor. I would like you to do me a favour. A favour not involving my ancestors this time. It’s about a party I’m having in the future.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. I want it to go off without a hitch this time.”

  “This time?”

  Space closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “For the first time,” he said carefully. “Now, for this party to go well, I’ll need you there. And I’ll need two things from you”

  Tempus looked at us both solemnly. “I’m in your debt. What do you need?”

  “One is a promise, the other is a story.”

  Chapter Thirty Two

  A Promise, A Story

  * * *

  Two things are infinite- the universe, human stupidity and our capacity for mistakes

  Geoffrey Prime

  Bleed for me, Sweet Dracula

  Ѻ

  “‘One is a promise, the other is a story’’”

  The faces, rapt with attention were turned to him. He stood uneasily at the head of the table, not used to the audience but everyone in the long hall was silent. The stars peered in through the window of the Kronis station and seemed to burn not in their usual cold crystalline light but in a warm amber; our celestial candles. Tempus paused, a little nervous, then proceeded with his story.

  “That’s what he said. ‘One is a promise, the other is a story,’” he put on a baritone voice that approximated Space’s to a smattering of laughter, “‘you have to promise to come to my party a year from now’. I said sure, I’d be delighted. But what was the story, I asked. I’m a scientist, not a writer, and a story like this could only, surely be recounted by the most skilled and sexy of writers. He agreed but he said that I just had to write up the story of my rescue as I saw it and share it with you here at this event: The Annual Captain Space Hardcore Appreciation Society’s Dinner. Well, as you can imagine, it’s the least I can do, I said. But why me? I asked him that too.”

  Professor Tempus cast a look at Space. A few in the crowd followed his look but Space only smiled placidly back, gave an inviting wave of the hand for the doctor to continue the story.

  “I’m no storyteller like I say and besides that, I was the surely one of the lesser of the Captain’s adventures. Teleporting a bomb out of a space station? It was more danger than I like but...Well, from what I know of his life that’s a slow day. I mean, the time displaced ancestors he brought to the proceedings is a weird wrinkle.” he smiled and the audience laughed with him. “By the way, captain, you were right. We made some breakthroughs in my laboratory and our first order of business- as per our agreement- was to return all of your ancestors from whence they came. They made for...Interesting companions while we had them.” More laughter from the crowd. Tempus shrugged at them “Story for another time maybe.”

  “But yes, even with that part of it unexplained as it still is-” he looked pointedly at Space who mimed zipping his lips. “Even with that, it has to be one of the lesser adventures. This is a man who killed Rasputin on Heraldon. He freed Aplubia. He’s been in more battles than I’ve had hot dinners. He’s eaten more hot dinners in battles than I’ve had hot dinners. So; why me? Why this story? You want to know what he said?”

  A receptive silence greeted him. Tempus set aside his notes. Clearly he had this part committed to memory.

  “He said ‘You’re the man to tell the story because you’re working in time travel already.’ I thought about that a lot. ‘Working on time travel already’. And stories are like time travel, aren’t they? Our stories, our memories. Our past is just a story that we tell to ourselves and maybe it’s as flawed and malleable as any other tale. Maybe that’s why we need other people around. Hell, maybe that’s why you even have this event- to see yourself
more clearly- reflected by the people in your life, because without them? Well, you could become….”

  He trailed off, looking fondly at those he’d come with.

  But before the moment could become uncomfortable he cast a sharp look at his watch.

  “He also said that I had to wrap up my story for exactly this time,” he tapped the timepiece “Well I’m a scientist. I’m an exact man, Captain. I have finished my story at exactly the time you asked me to. And as per your last request, I say the following.” he cleared his throat and cast an inviting hand toward the window. “‘Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can have your attention. In honour of this event and the esteemed guests who have gathered in this historic station, may I ask you to direct your attention to the view’.”

  A mass shifting in chairs followed for a few seconds, as well as a murmuring of curiosity. We all fixed our eyes out into the empty space. Tempus spoke on.

  “In appreciation for all of you, Captain Space Hardcore has arranged for a small fireworks display. May I present- the pyrotechnics of one Belson Erdinger!”

  A round of polite applause bounced around the room, as well as some confused looks.

  It would take a keen eye to see it. Out in the cold of space I saw something. For an instant I saw a tiny diminutive figure appear, as if he came into existence only then, laden with something about the size of a modest endtable. A keen eye might have been able to make out that it started clawing at its trousers as soon as it appeared. But he would have had to have been quick, since an instant later the entirety of the starboard side of the Kronis station was bathed in the brilliant shifting light of an enormous explosion. The lightshow bathed the station in a dizzy array of shifting light.

  The crowd ooh-ed and aah-ed in appreciation and gave a small round of applause as the brilliant blossom of light twinkled into a scattered halo of sparks and a blue hued cloud of some kind. I stole a look at Space. He sipped his drink around an enormous smile.

  “I told you I’d see you again,” he said softly.