Ten years seemed to have not aged Stephen Weathers a great deal, if at all. His once fire red curls had not been replaced by distinguished gray highlights. If anything they were even more ablaze. His blue eyes were still mystifying, full of secrets and ancient wisdoms to be told to no one. His jaw remained the same solid block of shatterproof determination, while his height was a permanent tower four inches above a muscular six feet.
Stormy shuddered when she realized her father’s appearance had not aged. The word immortality bombarded her senses, making them reel with the wonderment of it all. My God, immortality!
“Stormy,” her father shouted. He stood, tossed the manuscript he’d been examining on the floor, jerked the pipe from his mouth and his whole face beamed smiles. “By damn, lass, but I’m glad to see you. Just look at you, gal! Shoulder length fire for hair, flashing blue eyes, just enough freckles to make you gorgeous, and a full six feet if I’m any guess at all. You look just like your mother when she was in her twenties. How is she?”
His voice still boomed with the uncontrollable energy that Stormy remembered so well. As a youngster she had often expected her handsome father’s limitless energy and enthusiasm to blow him into uncountable pieces. She saw that it could still happen. She sighed. Now she had to tell him about mother.
“Mother passed away five years ago. She didn’t have to. I have no doubt in my mind that she died of a broken heart. The heart you broke. You never once contacted her. Can you tell me why?”
She saw her father’s height shrink. His shoulders stooped as he turned away from her. His booming voice softened to a whisper that she could barely hear. What she did hear thoroughly confused her.
“She wasn’t supposed to die. It must have been some form of rejection of the elixir I begged her to take. Something I never anticipated. I must study my formulas and find the cause.” He faced Stormy. “You must believe me, lass, when I say that I loved your mother. I loved her too much to bring her into my world of seclusion. What you see before you is a man who has turned his head away from the illiterates gracing the modern day scientific society. But of course you know that. As for the human race in general, I still want no part of any world populated with only non-thinking idiots. This, what you saw before you landed, is my world, my own personal star system. Here I will stay, among my research, my inventions, and my laboratory. It keeps me busy, away from the loneliness that would tear me apart if I thought about it, and the loneliness that I know would have killed your mother, no matter what. I couldn’t be that unfair to her.”
“You were that unfair to her, Father, by not letting her be with you. Surely you can see that, now that you know she has gone on. She would have loved just being with you. That’s all she ever wanted in life, to be with the man who put the wedding ring on her finger.”
“Yes, you’re right,” he said in that same soft whisper. “I know now that she should have been with me.”
There was no dislike in Stormy’s heart for her father, nor was she particularly fond of him. Stephen Weathers was living his own private hell and Stormy saw no need to add to it by shouting accusations at him about being a rotten husband and a rotten father. Instead she asked the question that had been plaguing her since she had received her father’s mental message.
“Why am I here?”
For a few seconds puzzlement arched her father’s eyebrows and twisted his mouth. “Well, that question tells me that you obviously have no memory of what happened to you,” he said.
Wrinkling her brow in controlled anger and surprise, she said, “Obviously I don’t. So are you going to tell me?”
“Yes, that is why you’re here, Stormy, lass. Because of what I have finally succeeded in accomplishing, it is now time to tell you. Lass, just before my exodus to parts unknown, you entered one of my inventions.”
“I did? Well, what happened? Did I become a pile of star dust?”
“No. Not quite.”
“Not quite! You can’t be serious.”
“I can. I am.”
Silence reigned for a few moments as Stormy studied her father’s face. It had suddenly developed a tic that gave his right eye and upper lip nervous twitches. She shattered the silence by saying, “Is that why you contacted me, because I was the super dumb kid who climbed into one of your machines?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so tell me all about it.”
“I will, when the time is right.”
“Damn it, the time is right, right now. Immediately, or even sooner, is when I’m ready to be told why I am here.”
Stephen Weathers threw back his head and guffawed for several moments. “By all the ancient Greek gods,” he shouted. “You haven’t lost a single ounce of that impatient attitude you inherited from me. You came out of your mother’s womb bawling loud enough to shake the maternity ward to its very foundation.”
Stormy’s laughter joined her father’s. “I can still be loud. And I have made it a point to never be patient about anything. You still haven’t answered my question about why I am here.” She took a deep breath. “Oh, all right, I’ll file that away for the time being, because I’m puzzled about this asteroid. It doesn’t exist. Yet here we are inside it. Care to explain? Or are you still going to avoid giving me an answer?”
Her father smiled. “We’re not inside an asteroid, Stormy, lass, even though one would think so from its outside appearance. Oh indeed no, we most certainly are not. We are in fact inside a spaceship, which just happens to be mine. I designed and built it.”
Shock silenced Stormy for a full minute. “We’re inside a spaceship. You did say that, didn’t you? And it’s yours? And you built it? Father, are you all right?”
“I’m in perfect physical and mental health. You found my spaceship because I parked it in the exact orbit of the asteroid that was destroyed. Needless to say we are no longer there. We are presently outbound to nowhere in particular. It wouldn’t be to my advantage to be detected.”
Chapter Three
It was all too much for Stormy. She sat down with the idea that sitting might stop her head from doing its whirling act. It didn’t help much. Neither did deep breathing.
Her father poured her a small glass of white wine, which she sipped slowly while leaning back and breathing deeply for several minutes. On her fourth sip, which emptied the glass, she spoke using a voice expressing great anger and disbelief.
“Just what is all this about? Am I asleep and having a dream? Or am I having a nightmare while I’m awake? Father, explain all this. At the moment I’m so confused I’m not even entirely certain you’re real. Are you? Why haven’t you aged? You look younger than the last time I saw you. Pour me another glass of wine.”
Stephen Weathers filled her glass to its top. “Easy now, lass, calm yourself down. You’re not dreaming. And this is most certainly not a nightmare. You’re awake. What you see is real. It’s merely one of my creations. As for my appearance, yes I’m real, and thank you for the compliment.”
“Oh sure, it’s all real and so are you. So here we are, all alone, inside a huge spaceship loaded with a room full of old fashioned books. Just the two of us and were outbound to nowhere in particular. Is that how the scenario goes? When do we break into our song? We’re Off to Nowhere In Particular. I’m a soprano and you’re a booming bass. Now how’s that for a strange duet. At the count of four, start singing. One, two, three…”
“Calm down, lass!”
Stormy stopped. She stared at her father. Through an inner fog in her mind, she heard her father’s booming voice slowly soothe her down to an almost normal level.
“Sip more wine, Stormy, lass. That’s it. Now breathe deeply and listen carefully to what I’m saying. First off, we’re not alone. Remember that I referred to this spaceship as my world. It has everything we as humans need, and it also has a population of one thousand. All are space survivor specialists who have isolated themselves from human society to join me and my quest.”
“Your quest,
and that would be what, Father? The same as what you told me years ago? The Phantom, and I suppose all the space legends about him? Am I right?”
“Aye, you are for a fact, lass. My life long search for the truth behind space legends will not let me rest, nor will all my other projects.”
Stormy downed her wine and set the empty glass on the floor. She puckered her lips and pulled on her right earlobe. It was a habit with her when she wanted time to think. Legends of space, well, that was an interesting subject, one her father was still obsessed with. But it had ruined his life, sent him into isolation, and killed her mother.
“Okay, I can understand how you haven’t changed, Father. Your obsessions are your obsessions. I have them, too. My love for my guy is one. But you still haven’t told me how you’ve suddenly decided to involve me in your obsession. Get to it, Father, or I’ll blast out of here before you can pronounce your name.”
Stephen Weathers smiled at his daughter’s spunkiness. “Only after we’ve eaten, lass, if that’s all right with you?”
“Now that sounds great. I happen to be starving. But after we’ve stuffed ourselves I want no blasting around the asteroid with any idle conversation. I want answers, and I’ll get them from you.”
Dinner was composed of food Stormy had never tasted. Earth food in the current century was all synthetic. But what she was eating, or trying to eat while wrestling with it, just couldn’t be synthetic. She reveled over the delicious taste of a long green thing that she at first took a hesitant nibble on and then, delighted by its taste, all but swallowed it whole.
“You are presently devouring asparagus. The white meat inside the orange shell you are finding nearly impossible to crack open is a lobster. The brown piece of meat is a steak. The eight remaining long green things on your plate are more of what you still have in your mouth. You’ve eaten two of them. Everything you are eating is from the farm and sea areas of this ship. As I mentioned earlier, my ship has everything humans need, and then some.”
Stormy finally conquered the lobster, dipped a small chunk in butter that her father said was the real article made from cow’s milk, and put it in her mouth. Lord, but the two ingredients together were delicious. “You’re full of surprises, Father,” she said a second later, after swallowing the tasty morsel.
“This, lass, is nothing compared to what you will experience right after we finish this meal.”
It was an enormous room. Every wall was a controlboard for something that mystified her. What appeared to be a wall sized panel of switches and dials opened to reveal a large room. In the room’s center was a huge circular desk containing six viewscreens sprinkled with keyboards. Three leather chairs on rollers were spaced sporadically for easy movement back and forth to the viewscreens and keyboards.
“Is this why you’ve involved me, Father, because you need somebody to operate a room full of computers? You can’t be serious.”
Stephen Weathers laughed. “No, lass, not at all, everybody in my world can operate what you see before you. You are here to view what I have discovered. Take a chair. Sit at the desk’s center viewscreen.”
“All right, Father. I should ask why, but at the moment I won’t. Rest assured I will later.”
Stormy scooted the chair to the viewscreen in front of her. It suddenly became hard for her to breathe. She felt an abrupt surge of excitement charging through her, causing her heart to race, making her realize she was about to be immersed into something that would change her life forever. But what exactly was it? The very fact she was with her father boggled her mind. His genius was unbelievable. However, this room was beyond all that. It was like standing at the edge of the universe watching creation occur and knowing that something was going to appear in the stygian blackness that would be oh so very special. She studied her father’s face. In his blue eyes, she saw creation. And his eyes also told her he knew the excitement and awe she was feeling.
He smiled at her. His booming voice metamorphosed into a whisper of fondness and he said, “Yes, Stormy lass, as I mentioned previously, you were but fifteen years old when you stepped into one of my machines and it activated.”
“What happened to me?”
He smiled again. “A wondrous thing, Stormy, you began living legends. You became part of the legend.”
Stormy caught her breath. It was difficult to talk and ask the question she was sure she already knew the answer to. “You’ve discovered the legends are real, haven’t you? And you just said I’m part of them. Is that why you sent me something about a Phantom of the Spaceways?”
Her father nodded.
“How is it possible that I’m involved? I can’t believe it. I would remember.”
Stephen Weathers opened a drawer in the desk Stormy was seated at. He drew forth an ancient book and a three-inch square, and placed them in front of her.
“This is a legend that is three centuries old. I want you to view it.”
“How do I manage that?”
He picked up the three inch square and handed it to Stormy. She felt caressing heat throbbing inside it, bathing her with awe-inspiring feelings of wonder and adventure. She sucked in her breath. She was on the edge of something she now desperately wanted to be immersed in. She heard her father’s voice and shifted her wonderment back to what he was saying.
“I experienced failure after failure for five years before I finally succeeded in building the exact machine that this historical legend would play in. As far as I am able to tell it is an exact copy of what is in the book thanks to somebody who was wise enough to know the book would eventually become too deteriorated to open even a single page.”
“That means somebody wanted this legend to be discovered.”
“Exactly, and the legend wanted me to contact you.”
Stormy studied her father. Again she saw creation in his eyes, and with it was hope for her. He visually became stronger, gathered strength. She knew it was some form of undying stimulation from the legend that had gripped his heart and soul. He glowed with energy, and that energy touched her. It influenced her to the point where she said, “All right, let’s quit stalling. Show me the legend that I now dearly want to see.”
Stephen Weathers nodded. “Very well, you shall see it. I hoped you would want to. But I ask you not to stop what you see, or ask questions, until the complete legend has ceased. Do you agree?”
“Of course, Father. Stop talking and let’s get on with it.”
He pressed a button directly under the communications screen. A section popped open and he inserted the three-inch cube.
Instantly the room and her father’s spaceship faded out as Stormy began living the Phantom legend.
Chapter Four
The ship was christened Andromeda One. In deep space, her beauty was a gleaming siren call. She was ten thousand feet of metal and superb power, a starship liner, the hallmark of the Thompson Davis Line, a rich people’s plaything, outbound from Earth to the human occupied Centauri planets.
So far it had been a highly pleasant cruise for the twenty thousand extremely rich passengers. The Captain of the Andromeda One was beginning to relax and congratulating himself on the safe trip. They had traveled beyond the orbit of Pluto and gone into hyperspace by means of the ingenious faster than light drive installed on all starship passenger liners. Now all that needed to be done was to skip back into normal space and traverse the distance to Prolar, the ship’s first planet stop.
“Captain Duggan,” said the first mate, “we’re approaching our skip point.”
“All right, Mister Hawkins, thank you.”
The Captain held his breath. No matter what star system a liner might journey to there was always the possibility of being boarded by space pirates. More than a few liners had disappeared, only to be found later as gutted hauls containing corpses. He pressed the main intercommunication’s button.
“Attention all passengers and crewmembers, this is Captain Duggan speaking. In a few minutes we will be skipping back to
normal space speed. There is no need for alarm when you experience a slight jar and momentary nausea. It is the normal sensation one feels as the ship makes the skip. When completed the ship’s view ports will be opened and you will be able to see Prolar quite clearly. We will be exactly seven days out from the planet. Remember, in a few minutes we will skip to normal space speed. Brace yourself for that happening. It is suggested that those of you beyond the years of sixty should take comfortable sitting positions. That is all.”
Inwardly Captain Duggan shuddered as he thought of the danger. Normal space speed was a terror to all spaceships because of space pirates that quite often would wait just outside of populated star systems. If only the faster than light drive system of star travel could be used inside a solar system, which was of course impossible. Such velocities would be disastrous, causing spaceships to crash into planets, or suns, or even skipping back to normal space inside a planet.
“Ten seconds and counting,” announced Captain Duggan. “Five, four, three, two, one, zero.”
The bump and nausea occurred. Minutes later, as the view ports slid back to their open position, the passengers saw Prolar. Momentarily they smiled at the planet’s beauty, until in the nearby distance they saw a large red spaceship. All onboard knew the ship. It was The Killer.
Commander Duggan’s worst fears and nightmares suddenly became a reality as terrified shouting came over the bridge’s communication’s center. The ship’s forward watchman was spelling out the doom of all onboard. “There’s a Battlewagon approaching off our starboard bow, Captain. It’s the space pirate, Red Comet, Sir!”
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