by Mack Maloney
But Hunter worked off instinct, and his instinct was telling him that he should at least try to understand what this thing was and why it was here. So he stuck his hand, then his shoulder, and then finally his head through the screen. What he saw was astonishing. He was looking at the barren landscape of Fools 6, the planet where he'd been found by Erx and Berx two years ago, the planet where he'd suddenly woke to find himself in the far-flung future.
But there was something strange here. He was about a mile away from the very familiar mountain where he'd found himself in a house he didn't build. But the house wasn't there. This could only mean he was looking at Fools 6 not only before he arrived but before the house had been built as well.
What the hell does that mean?
Suddenly, he found himself falling through the screen to the dusty road below. The screen had disappeared so quickly, he wound up hitting the road hard, with a mouthful of dirt to boot. He lay there for a moment as the vision of Fools 6, still burned on his retinas, slowly faded as well.
Then he picked himself up, wiped his clothes off, and found himself wondering if the screen had ever been there at all.
He walked down into the dip and up the next hill.
It was getting hot again, and he was perspiring by the time he reached the top of the hill. Up here, off to the left, was a country road, little more than a path.
Hunter turned on to it. Impulse, instinct, whatever it was, he knew this was the road to take.
It passed through a group of trees and then to a wide clearing. Here was a bright green field. A small rise.
At the top of the rise was a small cottage. Nondistinct. Except there was a flagpole outside.
Flying from it was an American flag.
He walked up the bare pathway leading to the cottage. As the small house was built on a hill, the higher he climbed, the larger he realized the grassy fields beyond it were. They seemed to go on for miles now.
He reached the front door and stopped. He could hear some movement inside. And the sounds of something mechanical, pumping, running. Breathing. Wheezing.
He knocked once, but in doing so, the door slowly opened. He stepped inside. He still had his gun, but he did not take it out. It had stayed in his holster since he'd climbed into the limo. He knew he wouldn't need it here.
He walked into the hallway. Again it looked more like something from his emerging previous lives than anything in the seventy-third century. Quaint was the first word that came to mind. The place was a bit dark, a bit subdued, but smelled of fresh flowers and some kind of spice. There were paintings of children on the wall, and an ancient time-keeping device called a grandfather clock in one corner. In his modern battle suit and his oversized crash helmet, Hunter felt very out of place.
What was awaiting him here? Another test of his will to conceal? He didn't think so.
He followed the wheezing sound to the first room on his left. The door was open. Hunter peered inside. It was a bedroom. An ancient four-poster bed was set against one wall. There was still a label on it that read, Sears Roebuck. On its mattress another label read, Sealy. There was a small table next to the bed and on it a tiny radio with the letters RCA emblazoned across its dial. Next to the radio was a small white machine, with a black liquid dripping into a pot underneath. A coffeemaker. It was making the wheezing sound.
There was a person lying on the bed. It was a man, presumably, dressed in a spacesuit, one that looked thousands of years old. A thick helmet was covering his head; on his hands were Velcro-lined gloves. His feet were shod with bulky, self-heating magnetic boots. On his left shoulder was a patch bearing the letters NASA. On the right, an American flag.
The man was an astronaut.
Literally, an ancient astronaut.
How did Hunter know? Because on a shelf above the bed there was a small digital clock — made by Timex. Its readout had been modified to count in hours, days, years. At that moment, it read 5,248 years, 14 days, 13 hours.
Now, this is strange, Hunter thought — and not just because of the dichotomy before him. Back on Earth, he'd been told the legend of a man living somewhere out in the Galaxy who could not die.
Someone who was hanging on to life without the benefit of Holy Blood, the fuel that kept the Fourth Empire going. But the story of the eternal man was just that: one of millions of tall tales that floated around the Milky Way like so much Stardust. Or so he had assumed. Could this be the man in that legend?
More important, was this the person Hunter was here to see?
He stepped into the room and realized there were two women sitting near the end of the bed, hidden behind the door. They were both wearing short white dresses and strange white caps on their heads.
They both had large, outrageous hairdos but were very pretty in other ways. They were both reading magazines and chewing gum.
Nurses, Hunter thought.
They barely looked up at him as he walked in.
The astronaut, on the other hand, acknowledged Hunter right away. He let out a long breath and moved up a bit on his pillows.
"Well, I see you made it through all of our security rings," he said, his voice sounding very mechanical coming from behind his helmet's front visor. Hunter could not see his eyes or face.
"Are you the one I'm supposed to talk to?" he asked him.
"I am," the astronaut replied confidently.
"How do I know for sure?" Hunter asked.
"Because we have a mutual friend," the astronaut replied. "Pater Tomm sent you — and he and I have been amigos for longer than I can tell you. We haven't seen each other in centuries, though. Is he well, I hope?"
"Last time I saw him, he was," Hunter replied.
The astronaut indicated that Hunter should sit in the chair next to the bed.
"It must be something very important for you to come here," he said. "And to go through what you did."
"I can't disagree with you there…"
"OK, then," the astronaut said. 'Tell me everything. Start at the beginning."
But Hunter hesitated. This was probably the guy Tomm wanted him to see. Either that, or he was a hell of an actor. And God only knew how he'd wound up here, in the old spacesuit, in a house right out of ancient America, ticking off the years like other people ticked off seconds. It must be a hell of a story, Hunter was sure. But there was a huge battle looming on the horizon. And the campaign to restore Earth and the Empire to its rightful owners was at stake, as were hundreds of thousands of lives. Weird planet or not, how could this man do him any good? And why should he tell him anything at all?
Then again, what other choice did he have? Here he was, stranded at the end of the Galaxy, with no way to get back to where he had to be. There was actually a good chance he'd be stuck out here forever. So why be coy now? Why not let it all out? And even if this was another test to gauge his ability to keep a secret, if he flunked it, at least something would happen. And something was always better than nothing.
So he told the ancient man his story. Waking up on Fools 6, being rescued and brought to Earth, winning the Earth Race, the search for Planet America, the invasion of the Two Arm. While he was speaking, one of the nurses retrieved an ancient martini shaker, mixed a huge potion of gin with a bright orange powder from a jar labeled Tang, and gave it to the astronaut, running a straw from the shaker under his helmet to his mouth.
Hunter concluded his tale with the most recent chapter, how he and the others had escaped to Paradise and then felt compelled to return to the other side again.
At the end of this part, the astronaut laughed.
"So you and your friends really think you were in Heaven?" he asked.
Hunter nodded, but with uncertainty. "You mean, we weren't?"
The astronaut sipped his Tang martini but did not reply. He changed the subject instead.
"I can see why Tomm sent you above others, Major Hunter," he said. "You've certainly lived an interesting life so far. After all these adventures, do you have any id
ea why you are here, in the seventy-third century? Have you figured it out yet?"
Hunter just shrugged. "Not completely."
"And why not?"
Hunter shrugged again. "I guess I've been busy with other things."
The astronaut laughed. So did the nurses.
"But don't you see?" the astronaut asked him. "Those 'other things' are exactly the reason you are here. I think it's fair enough for me to tell you that."
Hunter was puzzled, and it showed. "Please explain," he said.
The astronaut sat up a little. The other nurse adjusted his pillows.
"Well, let me guess: you've been too busy to think about yourself because you've been doing these 'other things,' like saving all the unfortunates of the Milky Way?"
"Well, trying to," Hunter replied. "I mean, it's been a full-time job."
The astronaut laughed again. "I'm sure it is, and that's precisely why you are here. You weren't just dropped out of the sky, out of time, for no reason, or as a fluke, my friend. This was no small thing, your coming to the seventy-third century. It took very powerful forces on many astral planes to pull off such a feat. It might have seemed like a random event, and it was intended that way. But don't disparage it as such. Nothing is random in this universe, and certainly not in this little speck of a Galaxy."
The astronaut raised his primary visor and, for the first time, Hunter could see his eyes. They looked old but they were twinkling. And Hunter could tell he was smiling.
"Simply put, you are a savior, Major Hunter," he said. "One of several chosen over the ages. You are here to save us. Save us all — from them. From evil. From tyranny. From the Fourth Empire. Hell, when they write the book on this, it might be titled Hawk Hunter Saves the Universel Hunter just stared back at him. Was he kidding? On one hand, the ancient man seemed so cool, so calm. And so American. And he really gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about — and that in a strange way, he couldn't be wrong. About anything. But on the other hand, there was no getting around it. He was an old guy in an old astronaut suit. He could be a maccus, a clown, for all Hunter knew.
"But how do you know this?" Hunter finally asked him. "How would you know that I was brought here to do these things?"
The smile left the astronaut's eyes. He was quiet for a long time.
"Because," he said finally, "Five thousand years ago, I was brought here for the same reason."
A long silence. The nurses were paying close attention to the conversation now.
The astronaut sipped his drink.
"And I will let you in on my whole story some other time," he said. "But at the moment, the reason you came here is more important. So, tell me again about this REF. There's something that really frightens me about them."
Hunter did as asked. He explained how at the height of the battle that never was, the United Planets fleet managed to disappear, only to find out that shortly afterward, the REF had disappeared as well.
Later on, the REF ships began showing up again, now painted red and apparently operating with little regard for SG headquarters or the Imperial Court back on Earth. Judging by their actions, their desire to create havoc and commit the utmost in cruelty seemed apparent.
The astronaut listened intently, becoming visibly upset when he heard further details about the REF's actions on Doomsday 212 following Bonz's murder. He slumped farther into his pillows, pushing the drink away from him. The nurses were becoming uneasy, too. They didn't like seeing him this way.
'Tell me something," he finally said to Hunter. "Have you seen the madness yet?"
"Madness?" Hunter replied. "I think I've seen it everywhere since I was dropped into this place."
The astronaut shook his head. "No, I used the wrong term; of course you've seen madness here. It is everywhere. What I mean is, have you seen or heard of other acts of unspeakable cruelty, above and beyond the pale? Something like what the REF did to the helpless SF troopers on Doomsday 212 after shooting down their ships?"
Hunter had to think. He'd been out of the loop so to speak for a month or so, so he wasn't privy to everything that had happened in the Galaxy while he was away. But there was that burst of panicky Maydays he'd heard during his dash across the Milky Way. From what he could determine, it seemed like innocent people both on planets and in ships were being killed, horribly, for no good reason. He told all this to the astronaut, and the old man became even more upset.
"This is the worst of all possible scenarios, I'm afraid," the man said gravely. "Can't you see what's happened?"
Hunter just shook his head. The nurses did, too.
"As you and your friends were so clever to find an escape door to Paradise," the astronaut began.
"The REF did the same thing — except they went in the other direction. You opened up a portal, a split in the fabric of space, and they were somehow able to take advantage of it, too. Or maybe they just fell into it and never told anybody in power after it happened."
Hunter needed a moment to connect the dots.
"Are you saying," he asked the astronaut. "That as we went to Heaven, they went… to Hell?"
"And found a way to come back," the astronaut nodded. "Just as you did."
Hunter's brain started doing a slow spin.
"Is… is that really possible?" he asked the astronaut.
"Why would you think it is impossible?" the man replied tersely. "Why do you think one place could exist, and not its opposite? You were in Paradise, correct? Where everything seemed good. Where there was no conflict, no need for anything negative. And I have the feeling that upon returning, some of that would travel back with you. In varying degrees, I suspect.
"But what you have to realize is that for a place so wonderful to exist, an opposite place would have to exist as well. And if a door opens to one place, then a door must open to the other. That's the dilemma, you see. Where a traveler to your place might see nothing but beauty and light and knowledge and passion, a traveler to the other place would see only the power that comes from evil. Pure evil. A very tempting thing, especially if you are predisposed to it, which I suspect these people in the REF were.
Ages ago, back on Earth, before we ever went to the stars, the yogis used to say that good and bad are actually two sides of the same thing. These two places — where you went and where they went — are the same idea, but exact opposites."
"Like matter and antimatter," one of the nurses said.
"Precisely, my dear," the astronaut replied. "And we — those of us who live here, within humanity, in the Galaxy, in the universe — are simply caught in the middle. It's been like that through the ages. And be advised: this has nothing to do with religion. The good place exists, the bad place exists, but their religious significance amounts to little more than a drop in an ocean. Religion is just the simplest way to explain something very complex, something that even the most advanced physics in the Galaxy today cannot begin to understand. But they are there. In the infinite number of planes that exist above and below this universe, these two are the ones right next door."
The astronaut shifted on his bed again.
"This is not good," he went on. "Something has been opened up here that cannot be so easily closed.
The madness— the real evil madness—is out. Again."
"So this sort of thing has happened before?" Hunter asked, not really sure he wanted to know the answer.
"Only all throughout history," was the astronaut's reply. "And I don't mean that dopey history back on Earth that barely went back ten thousand years. The history of the universe is as old as the universe itself.
Take a good look at one of those pyramids someday. Not the ones on Earth. I mean the ones they've found near the Ball, or on some of the real isolated moons on the Fringe. Some of those things are billions of years old. And someone had to build them back then, right?"
He let his voice trail off.
"So what can be done?" Hunter asked. "If what you say is true, this just got a lot b
igger than merely my friends trying to get back across. And I'm only one person. It sounds like impossible odds."
"All very true," the astronaut replied. "But that doesn't mean you still can't beat them. The real problem is that I suspect the REF knows what you and your friends are up to. Don't ask me how, but I bet they do. So you'll have to be careful, too. Remember, when it comes to these sorts of things, there is nothing new under the stars. The evil ones may be devious, but it's only when things start turning against them that they become especially cruel. And they fear you and your friends because they must know you've been to the good place, and there is power in that alone. So, I predict, their first trick will be to put innocent souls in harm's way to counter anything you might try to do. They will be willing to kill millions, hell, billions to get what they want. And what will you do then, Mr. Superhero, if the choice is between billions losing their lives or you just backing away? Is it better for innocents to live in tyranny and evil than not at all?"
Another long silence. Hunter had no reply. The coffee machine started wheezing again.
"It would not shock me to learn that they are going back into their bag of dirty tricks right now," the astronaut went on. "Dreaming up something that everyone will fear is new but will also be something they've done, successfully, in the past. They are inscrutable, and they are probably getting help from somewhere else in the underworld. There are many kinds of devils down there. Trust me, I know about these things. Just because I've lived five thousand years doesn't mean I've spent all of that time lying here in bed. Yes… they will try to make you defeat yourself. They will try to use your good conscience against you. You must be ready for that."
He leaned back on his pillows, suddenly exhausted. "A big one is coming," he said. "A terrible battle that could have terrible consequences. Whether it was your doing or not— opening the way to the other sides — that was a huge mistake. And if you ever have the chance, I would look into exactly who the person was who provided you the means to get to Paradise, because, whether they knew it or not, they also allowed the REF to get to the other place. By doing so, they put in motion the terrible events that are approaching us now.