The Pathfinder Trilogy

by Todd Stockert

  Ignoring his brother’s infamous sarcasm now on full display, Thomas instead looked him squarely in the eyes. “I believe the culprit was your mysterious alien visitor from the Wasteland. Remember David?”

  Adam tried to keep his jaw from dropping and hoped he succeeded. “David… that old coot? What on Earth would make you believe it was him?”

  Thomas studied the walking path beneath their feet for a moment, stretching east and west, before responding. When he finally did react, his expression had grown deadly serious. “Remember the silver watch that he gave you as proof of contact… the one you always carry around these days?”

  “Yes,” nodded Adam. “That watch has an inscription on the inside of its cover, a map of the solar system that we ended up using as a destination for most of the Kuth population. I kept it because I’ve never met anyone like that old fellow, certainly not anyone who radiated a brilliant aura. Not even Noah’s people can pull off that trick.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “At first I thought the Proteus technology was allowing me to see more about David than I would normally observe, but after we discovered that he completely shut down the implant’s recording capabilities, I realized that everything else was also probably off-line. It’s possible I was looking at him with just my own eyes… no enhanced vision.”

  “You think he was God!”

  Somewhat exasperated, Adam glared at his little brother. “I do not think David is God. Maybe an assistant or perhaps a Guardian Angel of some sort…”

  “Then why did you keep the watch?”

  “I just told you… the chain and outer casing are 99.9 percent pure silver. It’s a beautiful watch…”

  “Yeah,” grinned Thomas. “A beautiful watch from God!”

  “Would you… would you… seriously, please just give it a rest!” Unexpectedly, Adam suddenly began patting down the pockets on his shirt. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he expanded the search to the pockets of his pants.

  Thomas watched him curiously. “What’s the matter?” he prompted with a very mischievous, wry grin.

  “I seem to have lost that watch, believe it or not,” Adam admitted reluctantly, continuing his search. “But where could it have gone? I know I had it when we left the Lexington because I wanted the good luck charm for our journey. I even asked Nori to make certain she packed it before we left Tranquility.”

  “It’s not lost,” said Thomas, the comment freezing Adam in his tracks. Thomas raised his right hand and the watch dropped out of his fist, dangling on its long silver chain. “I discovered this in my backpack as soon as I removed the laptop.” Taking careful hold of it with both hands, he opened the cover. “If you’ll notice, the solar system inscribed on the inside of the outer casing has somehow been changed – now it’s inscribed with an image of Earth… specifically the Eastern Hemisphere. There is also a dot right marked on the map right where we are. When you consider everything, it really is a pretty magnificent way to send a message and provide a map at the same time… and it’s done that twice now!”

  For a moment, Adam stood there, utterly stunned and bewildered. “What?” he wondered out loud, finally approaching Thomas to more closely inspect the metal object. “How did you get that Thomas? That can’t be the same watch that I had… it can’t be!”

  “Don’t you get it Adam? This is another signal from your friend David,” insisted Thomas, handing the watch back to his brother. He turned and began walking slowly along the dirt road toward the developing western sunrise. “Believe what you want, but we’re here and this is the opportunity of a lifetime. So, according to my implant’s scanner, there’s a village near here and I’m going to see who’s there.” After walking several hundred feet he turned and glanced back “Are you coming?”

  “Yeah,” came the eventual, expected crotchety response. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  “There is only one reason we someone would send us here at this particular point in time,” continued Thomas, although with Adam trailing behind it sounded more like he was talking to himself. “We were sent to find Jesus Christ and talk to him.”

  “What, may I ask, are you going to say to him?” inquired Adam curiously.

  “I don’t know yet,” Thomas concluded. “Let me think about it for a while.”

  “Well, why don’t you also think about all of our loved ones, the people we left back in our present time,” suggested Adam, increasing his pace to a casual jog so that he could catch up to his sibling. “Since we know when and where they are, can’t you program the laptop to do the ‘micro-wormhole’ thing and reestablish contact? They’re going to be worried sick, and we have an obligation to let them know where we are.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, dawn is upon us and you’re talking about several hours’ worth of work just to make the necessary programming changes.” Thomas continued following the walking path, eager to see what life was like in the distant past. “This is time travel we’re talking about, for crying out loud. We can call them thirty seconds after our departure, if we choose to.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “By the way, until we do reestablish communications, I would suggest shutting down your personal shield and all other unnecessary functions. Use your wrist gun weaponry only if we are forcibly confronted and trapped in a situation where it’s absolutely necessary.”

  This came as a complete surprise to Adam. “Why?” he asked curiously.

  “Because as long as we’re disconnected from our Sentinels, the Lexington’s command and control staff will be unable to supplement the power source in our implants. That means both devices are limited to absorbing energy from the sun’s rays and anything else nearby. Since we’re in a primitive timeframe with no modern devices utilizing energy, they’re almost totally dependent upon sunlight. It would serve us best to allow the implants to charge as much as possible during the daytime.”

  “If this is indeed the Middle-East, then it’s going to get really, really hot out. I prefer the controlled, cool environment inside the skin shield.”

  “Fine by me, go ahead and stay cool if that’s your choice. But don’t complain about it later if you have to shoot at somebody and the request is denied due to a lack of power.”

  “Okay, so maybe I’ll turn off my personal shield,” decided Adam reluctantly.

  “Also place weapons functions on standby. And don’t worry – we’ll get our connection back. I’ll make the necessary additional program changes after it gets dark again. All I need is an isolated place to work. We should be grateful that we still have even a limited technological advantage… I don’t know how much history you remember, but there are a lot of really nasty people living in this time.”

  Together, the two of them continued to stroll gradually westward. In front of them, the dark of night was continuing to fade away, gradually replaced by an impressive pink and orange sunrise.

  Sol System, near Earth, present day…

  By the time everyone picked up all of their portable equipment and made their way over to the starboard cargo bay that currently served as the Lexington’s command and control center, President Kaufield was already suffering the early symptoms of headache. Fortunately, after years of service in a wide variety of stress-filled positions, the former starship Captain was prepared for these inevitable eventualities. He was already popping a few aspirin into his mouth from a small bottle he carried with him when they reached their destination. Already, technicians on-site were reviewing the data from the unsuccessful transit attempt and studying the telemetry recorded during the incident. Several of them, dressed in the long gray robes of Noah’s people, immediately approached their counterparts from Kaufield’s group as soon as they arrived and immediately began discussing the specific details.

  The bay itself was rectangular and cavernous, with an overhead ceiling nearly three stories high. Although all essential cargo containers were long since gone, much of the open space in the huge chamber was in use. Particularly at g
round level, the administrators at Tranquility’s Science Lab had done their best to recreate the same type of sophisticated control center as its planet-based equivalent. The computer systems used by the Proteus aliens were huge and required considerable power in order to operate, primarily because they were almost always on and functioning when operatives with brain implants were working ‘in the field’. In fact, the massive size of the Proteus implant monitoring systems had prompted Thomas Roh to deem them “prime examples of reverse miniaturization”.

  Above them, huge, heavily shielded power conduits emerged from the inner bulkhead and were securely bolted to the high ceiling. They ran midway through the massive storage bay until they finally descended – safely housed within a huge, four-sided steel pillar – to the waiting computer systems below. The conduits themselves originated in the portside cargo bay and were connected directly to the output of the Lexington’s internal, self-contained CAS-drive. This allowed them to access varying levels of power, supplying mission personnel with whatever energy was needed to protect them from the dangers they encountered. At least three dozen scientists and hardware specialists were already busy, members of rotating shifts that were always on duty at any given time each day. Kaufield noted with silent satisfaction that it was indeed quite difficult to distinguish this particular setup from the other versions located back on the planet Tranquility.

  And yet something had gone wrong anyway.

  The bitter taste of the hastily chewed aspirin remained in his mouth as the last of Noriana Roh’s patience faded away. She placed a firm hand on Noah’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “Where did you send my husband?”

  “As I have already stated, Ms. Roh, we sent them to our intended target destination, but I believe the transit was intercepted by an unknown third party and the portal redirected to an alternate location much farther in the past. The distant past,” he emphasized firmly. “Much farther than should even be possible, given the power limitations aboard the Lexington.”

  “How do you know this?” wondered Glen Fredericks curiously. Mary, his attractive, dark-haired wife stood next to him, concern evident in her eyes as she silently observed the rest of them.

  “At this point I suspect that my theory is in fact what transpired based on historical evidence,” continued Noah intently. His wizened expression softened a bit as he recognized Noriana’s obvious concern for her family. “I needed to reassemble everyone here in the Science Lab so that we can work to confirm it.”

  President Kaufield stood there, arms folded, watching their conversation. “Back in the hangar bay, you briefly mentioned the distant past,” he reminded Noah. “Where do you think Thomas and Adam are now?”

  Exhaling slowly and carefully taking the needed time to gather his thoughts, Noah shifted his eyes back and forth between the expectant faces of all of them… the original command crew from the Pathfinder. President Kaufield, Noriana Roh, Glen and Mary Fredericks, Dr. Karen Simmons, they were all waiting to hear what he was prepared to tell them about the missing two Roh brothers. “Their arrival point will almost certainly place them near the start of Earth’s common era, otherwise known in your Latin as Anno Domini or more commonly the ‘Year of our Lord’.”

  Glen Fredericks was astonished by the statement. “Why would they go there?” he asked with disbelief.

  “Please understand, Adam and Thomas did not go willingly,” explained Noah with his friendly, comforting smile. “They were deliberately sent there by an unknown third party, and therefore we cannot fully understand specifically why this was done unless we first know who did it.” Silence temporarily reigned among the small group. The specialists around them continued to work feverishly, analyzing recorded telemetry from the portal incident.

  “David,” snapped Kaufield finally, breaking the awkward pause. “It has to be that David entity that Adam encountered in the Wasteland. No one else we’ve met could pull this off…”

  “Precisely,” Noah nodded in agreement. “No one else has ever managed to override our technology the way David did when he shut down Adam’s implant connection while he was aboard the Ali Rinai. He is the guilty party, or someone with the same kind of special abilities.”

  “Why would David send Thomas and Adam two thousand years into Earth’s past?”

  Noah chose to respond to the President’s query with another question. “Do you remember our first lengthy conversation, Mr. President? The one we had back on Tranquility shortly after the Pathfinder landed there for the first time? If my memory is correct, I told you about an entity we once tracked on your world, someone with abilities very much like our mysterious David.”

  “Of course I remember.” Kaufield had recorded the entire conversation, since it was the first of its kind between human and alien… truly an event for the history books. Over the years, he had listened to it over and over again. In his head, he heard the words from Noah’s original statement echoing in his mind and repeated them out loud for the benefit of everyone else…

  “Consider this. Many thousands of years ago my people watched the early Earth inhabitants move through a progressive series of covenants with an unknown entity – one which we cannot track and had no prior knowledge of. This entity claimed it was the one true God that shaped and designed our universe. At first this God was very harsh and brutal to the violent and sinful people that lived on Earth. Over the years, as they began to mature, he made and kept additional promises to them that were both merciful and gentle. Your scientists think galactic objects like Poseidon and Proteus are a marvelous discovery… the greatest your science has ever found. Well, we created Proteus, and yet we’ve never seen anything quite like the history that took place on Earth during this time. This God sent his own Son to teach and guide them toward a path of peace and enlightenment, and that man sacrificed himself for those beliefs so that all souls born after him – regardless of their sins, might live an eternal life of peace.”

  “What does all of that mean?” asked Nori, almost pleading with them for an answer.

  “It means that Thomas and Adam were deliberately sent into the era of Christ, for purposes currently unknown.” Kaufield’s expression was grim. “Without the micro-wormholes their enhanced technical abilities are limited, and that is one of the most dangerous times in our history. Those two will stand out like a bloody nose.” He shook his head and rubbed perspiration from his brow. “It has to be David who did this – nothing else makes any sense.”

  “A divine encounter of some kind is supposed to take place?” Mary Fredericks looked first to her husband and then to Kaufield. “What would that accomplish as far as helping Earth?”

  “I don’t know for certain at this point,” Noah admitted reluctantly. “Once Thomas is able to reestablish contact with us, perhaps we’ll learn more. But for now, if we are to begin a sincere search for the Roh brothers, I strongly urge everyone to focus on the two or three decades occurring shortly after Anno Domini. That is where they are.”

  Glen Fredericks was politely conversing with several of the Science Lab technicians, lurking in the background to gather new information as it became available. When the specialists completed briefing him, he turned to face the rest of his friends and shrugged his broad shoulders with obvious puzzlement. “No one on this vessel has any idea as to where the Roh brothers are,” he informed everyone. “So how can you be so certain, Noah, that your claim is true? Why do you believe that Thomas and Adam ended up two thousand years in Earth’s past? So far at least, there is absolutely no evidence to back up that claim. With the exception of President Kaufield’s link, all telemetry from the attempted transit effort in the hangar bay cuts off completely at the instant of departure.” He studied the enigmatic Proteus alien, intrigued.

  “Because I have additional information at my disposal that, until now was classified by my government.”

  Feeling somewhat blindsided, President Kaufield studied the elderly face of his long-time colleague closely. “Why would
you withhold specifics relating to our planet or personnel?” he asked, perplexed. “It may have been fifteen years ago, but I remember us hammering out a pretty detailed shared information act.”

  “My government did not want to interfere with the normal development of your planet or inadvertently give away information that might affect the Roh brothers and their mission.”

  Noriana threw up her hands impatiently. “What mission? There is no mission any longer… is there?”

  Rubbing fatigue out of his eyes with the fingertips of both hands, Noah sighed heavily. “What I am about to tell you is why I mentioned my long ago conversation with President Kaufield,” he began after a brief pause to collect his thoughts. “My people have been interested, for a very long time, with that particular era of Earth’s history specifically and with several millennia preceding it. We knew there was an entity of some kind, someone or something even more powerful than us, working to shape the foundations of much of the culture on which your early civilizations were built.”

  “God?” Nori was watching him suspiciously, eyes narrowed.

  “Many of us believe so,” Noah shrugged. “Whoever visited Earth directly interfered with our ability to observe events there, and that made us extremely curious. There were many in those days who wanted to travel to your planet immediately and discover for themselves just what specifically was taking place.”

  “Apparently your government wasn’t so hesitant to interfere back then?” Kaufield smiled calmly.

  “Many of us weren’t,” agreed Noah. “Our history books clearly show that at least one faction of our government was planning to launch a detailed investigation. Some wanted to approach this entity in hopes of learning more about what it was and where it came from, similar to the manner in which your people approached mine. Others were understandably concerned that the entity might manipulate your people instead of guide them, toward ends that served its needs rather than your own. Like your earlier planned mission into Earth’s recent past, we had chosen our own team of specialists and were preparing to send them to your world.”