by Gray Lanter
Astrid chuckled. “Nothing to tell. He had roaming hands and they roamed into the electric shock zone. Boy, did he get a surprise.”
“Did he know you had the electro-implants when he grabbed you?”
“I don’t know. But he did after he grabbed me.” She chuckled again. “I gave him a full blast. Knocked him off his feet, flat on his back. So I walk up, grab him south of the border and tell him if he ever tries that again, this is the place I will zap him. He was sweating a river when I let him go.”
“Glad you zapped him,” Geneva said. “It’s tough not liking Ed. He does have charisma. What he doesn’t have is a romantic bone in his body.”
“He was lucky to have any bones after Astrid fried him,” Rab said. “I never date women with electro-implants. What happens if they have a bad temper?”
“You just better be extra nice to them,” Geneva said. “Women have needed those things for a thousand years. Hey, finding mates when you are expert in dozens of weapons is not easy. How would you like to be a guy married to a woman who can kill you in any number of ways?”
“I highly recommend it,” I said, prompting more laughter from the Raiders. “And I’m still alive.”
Carli shook her head. “If you’re in the military you can’t marry a civilian. They just don’t understand. You particularly can’t marry a civilian if you’re one of the Ryvenbark’s Raiders. How many civilians could understand what we do?” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “The love you have for your comrades is something very difficult for civilians to understand.” She offered her glass in a toast. “You are my brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and dearest, dearest friends. Without you, there would be a gigantic hole in my heart.”
“Hear, hear,” Rab said. He clinked his glass on hers. We all did.
After we emptied our liquor bottles, we sang songs of war and songs of love.
There was no night in this chamber, but the sky grew dimmer as the gray of what would be an Earth evening spread across the empty fields. We ended on a note of joyous melancholy.
We broke up and roamed around the camp. Usually I can sense when people are near, but I was so relaxed I didn’t notice Geneva at my elbow.
“Sir, may I talk to you a moment?”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“Major, you sense or feel anything or any presence besides the Raiders here?”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”
She sighed and crossed her arms. “I’m slightly empathic. The trait isn’t nearly as strong in me as our official empaths, but I have a degree of it. The feeling I have is vague, but I have a sense we’re being watched. That someone or something is keeping an eye on us.”
“Are you sure? How could an alien be around without us seeing him?”
“I don’t know sir, and no, I’m not sure. My empathic sense is not strong. I could be wrong, but I wanted to bring this to your attention.”
“Thank you, Geneva. You did the right thing.” I paused. “You say there is someone watching us. Can you tell anything about this alien or just that he’s close by?”
“I don’t sense any hatred from him or anything hostile. I feel a... curiosity and a puzzlement. And... this is strange... a...”
“A what?”
“Some type of poignancy. But I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I, Geneva. I guess the only thing we do is wait and watch. But you felt no hostility, no animosity toward us?”
“No sir. None at all.”
“Keep me informed. Let me know if that empathetic sense gets stronger or weaker.”
“Yes, sir.”
I shook my head. An alleged alien being who likes off-key singing. The sphere continued to have mysteries galore.
Chapter 12
If the mysterious being liked singing, he got an earful of it the next morning. We marched toward the next gate. Astrid started with another chores of ‘Gary Owen’, and I gave a rendition of Stephen Forster’s ‘Beautiful Dreamer’, which I had often sung for Astrid. We trudged down the road. Since there was no decent scenery, we provided our own entertainment.
The day was bright but not very hot. I guessed the temperature was about 65 degrees, which is not bad marching weather. Or walking. I saw no reason to hurry.
“Have a song about corn?” Rab asked as we passed yet another field.
“Well, there’s Oklahoma where the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. I think that’s the lyric.”
We made a slight turn and smiled where a deep blue lake appeared. The light wind rippled the waters. Small waves lapped the ground.
“Wow, something different,” I said.
“Anything to break the monotony,” Astrid said.
Tek stared at his scanner. “Good news. The lake not only looks like water; it is water. We can refill our canteens.”
I dumped my canteen in the blue and watched the water splashing over it. I motioned to Geneva.
“Any more sensations?” I asked.
“Yes, but very faint. I have to focus mightily to feel anything at all.”
“Anything different than what you’ve felt before?”
“No, sir.”
“Thanks. Just checking. Raiders, let’s make a few more miles before lunch.”
The lake was the only scenic spot on the trip. We walked three more miles and all we saw were cornfields. No animals, no birds, no inhabitants. Just green stalks and more green stalks. It was akin to driving through Kansas or Nebraska. Just flat land.
I halted at a small circle of trees so the squad could have lunch. I wondered if we should use the jets to complete the journey, but decided against it. They were quicker, but we might need them again and we did not have unlimited power. We had one last chamber to travel and I doubted it would be as peaceful as this one. I wanted all our weapons and equipment ready. We might need to take to the air again. Besides, if there was something unfriendly and hiding in this chamber, a flying convoy is an easy target. We don’t travel that fast. Anyone with a gun and fair shooting ability could easily kill one or two or us before the rest of the squad could respond.
We would walk to the next gate and see what was behind it.
I munched a sandwich and Cajun Asian walked up. The mouth was firm. The eyes alert. The firm mouth turned downwards in a frown. I didn’t think that was a good sign.
“Major, there’s something wrong here. Very wrong.”
I took another bite of the sandwich. “Did you have to tell me that? Things were going so well. Peaceful, quiet, tranquil.” I finished the sandwich and wiped my hands on the uniform. “So what’s wrong?”
She pointed south. “This chamber is bigger than the first two. This one is about a hundred miles long. We should have walked about twenty-five miles, which means we should have seventy-five miles left.”
I nodded. “Just a hop, a skip and a jump until we get to the gate and the next doorway.”
She shook her head. “Not exactly, sir. All our instruments tell us the next gate is still a hundred miles away from us. We haven’t made any progress whatsoever.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was. I double-checked this with Tek. He has come to the same conclusion.”
Tek walked up as she finished her sentence.
“I was just about to yell for you,” I said.
“What Cajun told you is true. I didn’t believe the readings at first. I checked and re-checked them. But the fact is we are no closer to the next gate now than we were two days ago.”
“Could something be throwing the instruments off?”
“No, they’re fine. We are still a hundred miles away from the next wall. I have a uneasy feeling that if we keep walking for weeks we’d still be a hundred miles away.”
I took a swig of water and wished we hadn’t drank all the liquor.
“Isn’t that impossible?” I said.
“Yes, sir. It is.”
“But it’s still true.”
; “Yes, sir. It is.”
“It’s some kind of space-time paradox, Logan,” Cajun said. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“It’s just in this chamber, not in the others?”
“Apparently not. I can’t explain that either.”
“Shucks.”
“That was what I said too,” Tek said. “Well, actually, I used different words than shucks. My words had fewer letters than shucks does.”
“My reaction was a bit more colorful too,” Cajun said. She smiled. “We’ll let you think about this for a while, sir, so you can come up with a solution.”
“Not me. I’m depending on my science advisers on this one. I would like some suggestions.”
A solemn tone came in Tek’s voice. “We don’t have any. Not right now. I’m at a loss. I have no idea how a time paradox would operate in the sphere and I have no idea how to resolve it. The solution to this would take a trainload of scientists.”
I frowned. “I was thinking of taking a trainload of scientists with us on this mission, but I figured I wouldn’t need that many. Guess I was wrong.” I shook my head and walked a couple of steps. Dizziness enveloped me and my foot slipped. I stumbled and my knee hit the hard ground. My hands went to my head. For a moment the world went blurry. Tek and Cajun ran over and grabbed my arms to support.
“You OK, sir?”
The dizziness passed. The world came back into focus.
“Yes.” I shook my head. “I just felt dizzy for a moment.”
My 20/20 vision was back, so I watched in crystal clarity as Geneva walked up. “A number of Raiders have experienced that, sir. I have too; early this morning. It lasts for a few seconds then disappears and everything is fine.”
“Would this be connected with the entity you think you sense?”
“I think so. I think he, or she, or it was probing our minds.”
“Why?”
“Seeking insight perhaps. He may never have seen humans before. He wants to know about us. We know some races who can read minds. At times you can sense you’re being probed and other times you can’t. But I didn’t feel any hostile intent when the dizziness hit me. The sense I get was curiosity and... perhaps friendliness.”
“If he wants to know about us perhaps we should invite him over for lunch,” I said.
“Actually this may be a positive sign, sir, the curiosity I mean. Curiosity shows a degree of intelligence. Some races have very little of it. Curiosity can denote a sense of wonder, of seeking to understand what’s around you. Seeking to understand, not attack or conquer or subjugate.”
“I wish him luck with that. Humans have been trying to understand other humans for centuries. Haven’t had much success at it. Anyway we have a more immediate problem. Tek, if I understand what you are telling me, then we can walk for days, or months or years without getting any closer to the next gate. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t go forward, can’t go back.”
“Precisely.”
For the next hour we wandered around aimlessly. One of the most agonizing things for a military leader, who is used to action, is to know he is helpless in any particular situation. To proceed forward was futile. But we couldn’t go back. If we did nothing, we’d spend eternity in the midst of green corn stalks. Even vegetarians would find that annoying. A military leader also hates a no-win situation and we hope we never have to deal with one. I sighed. Then looked toward my squad.
“Raiders! We’re moving out. Five minutes before we start.”
I felt Astrid’s hand on my shoulder. “Logan, where are we going?”
I pointed toward the path. “That way. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Who knows? Maybe we’ll stumble across something that will be a key to this mystery.”
“Sort of grasping at straws, aren’t you?” she said.
“Yes, but that’s the only thing I have to grasp.”
Chapter 13
As we walked, Astrid did her best to keep morale high. She sang more songs. She, Geneva and Carli did a stirring, if slightly off-key version, of the ‘Boogie-Woogie Bugler from Company B’. She told me it was a song from World War II, made famous by a group called the Andrews Sisters. I took her word for it. But by the afternoon, the Raiders had become dispirited and even Astrid had clammed up. I didn’t blame them. It’s difficult to keep smiling when you’re marching to nowhere. The grasping at straws tactic wasn’t working out.
I looked straight ahead as we stepped down the road. Most of the other Raiders did, too. But Cricket didn’t. She wandered over to the side of the path.
“Major, over here!”
With the rest of the squad I ran toward her. She pointed toward an area on the edge of the cornfield.
Five skeletons lay in the dirt. Bleached bones consuming in the light.
“Previous tourists I’m guessing,” Cricket said. “Probably they were trapped here and ran out of food.”
The squad walked over to them. The deceased had been humanoid. Fingers, arms, legs. But there was nothing to indicate what type of humanoid they had been. Or how they got here, never to return to their native planet.
“How long have they been here?”
“Difficult to believe, but according to my readings, thousands of years. I take back ‘they died of starvation’ guess. Maybe they died of old age,” Cricket said.
“Thousands of years. And they haven’t decayed?”
She looked at me, glanced at the skeletons then looked back at me.
“Nope,” she said.
“I’m going to overlook that sarcasm because it was a dumb question.” I frowned. “I was hoping for a local chamber of commerce branch where employees would welcome us to the neighborhood and also tell us how to leave.”
“Maybe that’s just around the next cornfield, sir.”
I slung my laser rifle over my shoulder again. “Let’s find out. Thirty more minutes and then we stop for the day. Maybe we’ll find some live beings on the next stage of the march.”
“Let’s hope they’re live, friendly beings.”
“No, let’s hope they know something about time and paradoxes and how to get out of one,” Cajun said.
“What are the chances of that?”
“About a zillion to one.”
I shrugged. “Well, as long as there’s a one in a zillion chance...”
“Yea, let’s go for it,” she said.
Ten minutes later I was humming ‘You are my Sunshine’ when I spotted the figure walking down the path toward us. He was about a mile away so I hauled out my binoculars. I halted the column while I peered at the straggler.
And I was shocked.
What I was seeing could not be real.
“What is it?” Astrid said.
“Somebody who looks like an old friend. Which is impossible.”
“The impossible is becoming routine.”
“Let’s go greet him.”
A half-mile later I could make out the man clearly. So could all the squad members. He wore a brown suit and was holding a worn-out book bag which looked pretty heavy. The man he looked like was my friend and professor Clu Ryker. He put down the bag. He had a big smile and blue eyes, with a little gray in his hair. His manner said he didn’t have a care in the word. He stopped six feet from us.
“Hello Clu.”
“Good to see you again, Logan,” he replied.
“So how have you been?”
He nodded. “Doing well. Doing very well.”
“Glad to hear that.” I raised my rifle but didn’t point it at him. Just eased it down on my shoulder, barrel pointed toward the sky.
“So, who are you really?”
The answer came from Geneva who had slipped by my elbow. “He’s the man who’s been shadowing us.” She laughed. “The man who has been listening to all our songs.”
Ryker nodded. “Yes. I am the inhabitant, the sole inhabitant of this chamber. I’m very content here. I have no complaints whatsoever. But I
rarely have company. Pleasure to have you drop by.” He opened his hands and showed them to us, palms up as if surrendering. “I can change my shape, so I thought of appearing as one of your old friends, major. My true shape would be very ugly to you. I prefer not to shock you.”
“Few things can shock us, but I appreciate the courtesy. Kinda nice of you.”
For some reason he looked immensely pleased to be talking to us. Akin to a high school nerd when the most beautiful girl deigns to talk to him. You can look at him and tell he’s having a good day.
“I had no knowledge of humans before you dropped here. You are an intriguing race. Incredibly complex. And... admirable.”
“You actually like bad singing?” Geneva said.
“Is that what you call it?”
“Yes.”
The wide smile grew a millimeter wider. “I found it to be delightful. I had never heard singing before.”
“You really ought to get out more,” I said. “Not that there’s any place to go here. By the way, what should we call you?”
“Huck is a good name. One of your favorite literary characters I believe, major.”
“Yes, he is. But you don’t have to change your form and look like him, although I’m sure you could. Your Clu Ryker is just fine. Are you the being that Geneva sensed?”
He nodded.
“The man who was curious about humans. He’s the one who was probing our minds and no doubt learned a great deal,” Geneva said. “But I’m sure not all of it was admirable.”
“Most of it was,” Huck said. A soft, poignant resonance came into his voice, as if he was seeing a beloved long-lost relative for the first time in decades. “You’re the only race I ever wanted to call friends.”
“I think we just received a supreme compliment,” Geneva said.
“Not to take advantage of a new friend, but we’re in a conundrum, Huck. Time and distance seem to be doing strange things. We don’t seem to be making any progress. Could you tell us how to get out of this chamber?”
“Yes, I can. I will help you,” he said.