The Search for Cleo

by Aaron J. Ethridge

  “We know that he's male?”

  “To kill it.”

  “Are we sure we're in the right spot?” Morgan asked, glancing around the canopy. “I haven't seen a single talfen fly. If this were mosquito territory, they'd be everywhere.”

  “Maybe I should have said 'horse fly',” the traveler replied. “Talfen flies don't really swarm like mosquitoes, and... Ahhh!”

  Morgan spun around to see a 'fly' on Robert's back about the size of a rat. Instinctively, he rushed toward his companion – drawing his gun as he did so.

  “What are you doing!?” Robert cried.

  “I'm going to crush it with the butt of my pistol,” Morgan explained, taking his gun by the barrel.

  “Don't do that!” the traveler yelled. “Ow! Ow, ow, ow! This is like having blood drawn directly from your spine.”

  “Let me kill it.”

  “No,” Robert said, turning to face his friend. “For all we know, this is the one we're after. Killing it could create a paradox.”

  “Then, at least let me shoo it away.”

  “That, you can do.”

  Morgan approached the giant insect waving his hands and literally saying “shoo” again and again. This had no effect. The young man then tried to blow the blood-sucker off his friend's back, but to no avail. After this, he tried poking it. Although it buzzed its wings in reply, it refused to give up its lunch just because Morgan was harassing it.

  The young man's attempts had given the girls more than enough time to respond to Robert's initial cry. They arrived as Morgan was doing his best to “jump scare” the bug away.

  “Move, Morgan,” Cleo said, shoving him out of the way. “This is how you do it.”

  The green maiden then reached up, grabbed the massive mosquito-esque bug firmly in her hand, ripped it from her fiancé's back, and threw it into the air.

  “Thank you, love,” Robert said, reaching toward his spine as the talfen fly flew into the distance.

  “Anytime, dear,” she smiled.

  “I hope you didn't just infect that bug with something,” Morgan said thoughtfully.

  “I didn't,” the traveler assured him. “I'm not a carrier of anything. Even if I was, that particular talfen fly will be dead a few minutes. Which strikes me as sweet justice under the circumstances.”

  “What if it infected you with something?”

  “Are you kidding me,” Robert laughed. “I'm completely immune to every disease known to man – or even aliens for that matter.”

  “That's a plus, I guess,” Morgan nodded, his eyes scanning the area. “Let's get out of here. I have no desire to get bitten by one of those things, whether or not I might catch something.”

  “Agreed,” the traveler nodded.

  After a few minutes more, their task was complete and they were on their way back to the ship.

  “Rob,” Morgan said as the group was marching past the still-sleeping whatever-it-was, “why does this thing have orange stripes down its sides?”

  “It's camouflage, Morgan,” Azure pointed out.

  “I could see that,” he nodded, “if anything around here was orange, but nothing is.”

  “I imagine things that size only have a few predators that hunt them,” Robert said. “Even in a world like this. More than likely, the eyes of whatever it is that eats them doesn't see colors the same way we do.”

  “I wonder just what those predators are,” Morgan replied.

  “It's probably better that we don't know,” the traveler observed.

  “Yeah,” the young man nodded. “I can see that.”

  Shortly after this conversation, the crew was back in the car and headed for the ship. The moment they arrived, they made their way straight to the bridge, where Cleo used her passcode to unlock the controls. Mere seconds after this was done, the comm lit up.

  “I wonder what's up,” Robert said, reaching out and pressing a button on the console. “This is Rob.”

  The image of Doctor Sturm instantly appeared on one of the monitors.

  “Dear Robert,” he said with a wide smile. “It's so good to see you.”

  “This wasn't very bright, Alex,” the traveler pointed out. “You know we're looking for you, right? Cleo and I are going to be able to work out where you called from. Look behind you. I might just be there.”

  “Very amusing, Robert,” the doctor laughed, “but, I assure you, in just moments, you're going to have a lot more on your mind than tracing this call. Undoubtedly, you remember my warning you that your luck was about to run out.”

  “Yep...” Robert replied, pretending to stifle a yawn. “I remember that bluff, alright. Anyway, what do you want, Alex? It's been a long day, man. We were just about to knock off.”

  “I know just how you feel,” Doctor Sturm replied with a wide smile. “It's been a rather long day for me, as well. It wasn't just a matter of working out how to fill your ship with explosives. We had to find a way to track you down, and then actually get the bombs on board. It really was quite a bit of work. Well worth the effort, though.”

  In reply, Robert merely gazed at the monitor in silence.

  “I'm glad I decided to record this conversation,” Sturm said with a contented sigh. “That look is priceless. How, Robert? How did I do it? That question is going to be driving you crazy for the next hundred years – which I find hilarious for some reason. I suppose it's childish, but...”

  “Sturm,” the traveler said quite seriously.

  “Hold on, Rob!” the doctor interrupted excitedly. “A few ground rules first: If you run an internal scan, the ship will explode. If you try to take an escape pod, the ship will explode. If you try to pull a time-drive out of an escape pod... guess what happens!”

  “The ship will explode?” Robert said, shaking his head.

  “You’ve got it!” Sturm laughed. “You see, Rob, I'm stranding you out here until the universe has time to heal itself. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that – once that's happened – you'll have never been abandoned in the past. When it's all over, you won't have felt a thing. Just ask Miss Zelbizarre.”

  “I'm going to get you for this, Alex.”

  “No,” the doctor laughed. “No, you're not. You see, Rob, I finally discovered the secret of defeating you. I just have to think like you. Doctor Dassmock, if I were you, I'd be sure to grab a portable personal sanitation unit. Otherwise... well, I'm sure you get the idea.

  “Last thing to keep in mind; no matter what happens here, all this will be undone when the universe repairs itself. That's really important to know because, in three minutes, the ship will explode.”

  As he said this, Doctor Sturm switched off the comm.

  “Grab everything you can and get to the car!” Robert yelled before flying from the chamber.

  The crew immediately followed their captain's example and, two-and-a-half minutes later, they were all packed in the car with everything they had time – or in Morgan's case 'sense' – enough to grab. With a little less than thirty seconds to spare, Robert sent the car flying away from the ship – hoping against hope that they would be able to get out of the blast radius in time.

  At exactly the three-minute mark, Sturm's ship appeared right beside Cleo (the ship, not the girl) and the car's comm lit up.

  “Yes, Alex,” Robert said between clenched teeth as he opened the channel.

  “I can't do it,” Doctor Sturm said, shaking his head. “It's just too cruel. I can't leave you down there for centuries, wondering how I did this to you. It would drive you crazy. So, I've decided to be generous and tell you myself.

  “Most kind,” the traveler replied, his jaw muscles flexing as he spoke.

  “You see, Robert,” Alex said softly, leaning in nearer the camera, “the way I did it was: I lied.”

  “What?!”

  “That's right!” Doctor Sturm laughed. “You should be proud. You finally managed to teach me something. All I had to do was ask myself: what would Robert do? The answer was crystal clear! H
e'd just lie. Especially if he had my credibility. I mean; who would ever imagine that I was lying?”

  “Not me...” the traveler admitted with a frustrated sigh.

  “Exactly!” Alex replied with a gigantic grin. “I mean; how could I have possibly gotten onto your ship and filled it with explosives. You're almost as smart as I am, and you have a crew of geniuses working alongside you. No matter how I thought to come at it, you'd have stopped me. Fortunately, you're not accustomed to having to deal with liars. Which is what made this so simple. Speaking of which; if you do manage to escape somehow, I've got a bridge I want to sell you.”

  “Very witty.”

  “I'm glad you appreciate it,” Sturm chuckled. “My absolutely final word is this: Please don't head back for the ship, Rob. We'll have to shoot you down if you do. You're too dangerous to take chances with.”

  Once again, Doctor Sturm switched off the comm. As they continued their journey back to the prehistoric planet, Morgan spotted a small vessel flying from Sturm's red ship to their own green one. This vehicle made its way into the bay that their car had recently occupied. The doors closed behind it and, just minutes later, both ships vanished completely.

  “I cannot believe we just lost Cleo,” Robert said, clearly seething with rage.

  “She's right here, bro,” Morgan pointed out.

  “The ship, Morgan,” the traveler replied, once again speaking through clenched teeth. “The ship! Not, the girl.”

  “Not the woman...” the young man replied softly.

  For close to thirty seconds, no one spoke.

  “Rob,” the young man finally said with a rising inflection, “may I?”

  “Go ahead, Morgan,” his captain sighed.

  “Sturm!” he cried, shaking his fist in the air.

  Chapter 5: Jurassic Lark

  “Where are we going?” Morgan asked after nearly ten minutes of their flying along above Thundera's atmosphere.

  “I'm looking for a place to land,” Robert explained through his still-clenched teeth.

  “Just park where we did before.”

  “No,” the traveler said, shaking his head. “Whatever we do, we're not going back there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Morgan,” Robert replied with a frustrated sigh, “with any luck, we've already set off the bug bombs. Until we do that, though, we need to avoid the place.”

  “What?”

  In response to this question, the traveler merely gazed into the star filled sky and shook his head.

  “What he's saying,” Cleo asserted, “is that once we get out of this, we still have to kill the talfen fly. By this point in time in the future we're going to have already done that, but we haven't done it yet in the present. So, for the moment, we shouldn't go there because we might inadvertently cross our own time-lines somehow.”

  “I got ya.”

  Robert piloted the car above the surface of the world while his crew rode along in complete and total silence. After nearly ten minutes more, he landed the vehicle in the middle of a sprawling savanna. He held up his index finger, indicating that his companions should give him a moment, and leapt out of the car and into the waist deep grass.

  “That lying, scheming, conniving, treacherous snake!” Robert screamed at the top of his lungs as he began to express his fury more fully. “When I get my hands around his smug, pedantic, pencil-neck I'm going to choke the life out of him. Then,” he continued, softening his tone, “I'm going have Doc bring him back from the almost dead. Then,” he yelled, “I'm going to choke the life out of him again. After that, he's going to prison. No! In fact, after that, he's going to the Never Never Land zoo. Twenty years of people throwing peanuts at him will wipe that smile off his face!

  “On top of which, I'm going to have him kicked off the council for the rest of eternity. That kind of dishonesty is intolerable. Oh! And, I'm going to force him to stay regenerated to ten years old so everyone will know just how childish he actually is. After that,” he said before pausing a moment to think, “I'm going to... come up with other things to do to him.”

  “Maybe you could hit him in the face with a pie on national television,” Morgan suggested from the car. “Or would that be island-wide television?”

  This statement caused the traveler to laugh in spite of his seething rage.

  “Robert,” Doc said with a gentle smile, “it might be best to assess our current situation and see what our options are. We're not going to want to spend the night in the car.”

  “You're right, Doc,” the traveler sighed. “We might as well get that over with. According to the scanners, there's nothing within about a mile radius that should be any threat to us. So, we've got a few minutes, at least. Everybody out of the car.”

  The crew immediately obeyed their captain and climbed from the vehicle before laying the treasures they had managed to salvage from the ship on the ground in front of him. One item in particular instantly attracted his attention.

  “You brought the snail tank, Morgan?”

  “I didn't want them to get blown up.”

  “You bought them to eat them.”

  “I told you; I don't think I can now that I know them.”

  In reply, Robert merely nodded in silence.

  “Well,” he said with another sigh, “let's see what else we've got to work with.”

  As it turned out, in addition to the snails, Morgan also thought to snatch up the essential items that were: his bottle of Morgan cologne, a ten-pack of cinnamon flavored chewing gum, his toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as another pack of toothbrushes that had enough in it for him to share with everyone else. Robert seemed to be annoyed with everything except the dental hygiene products. He assured Morgan, however, that he hadn't expected much from him in the first place.

  The rest of the crew had been far more practical. Vox had gone to the armory and quickly collected a number of weapons, including several magazines for their tranq-bullpups, as well as a few extra shield and stealth generators. Cleo had loaded herself down with computer equipment, while Azure had rushed to the engine room and grabbed up as many tools as she could carry. Doc had taken Sturm's advice and brought a portable personal sanitation unit with him, along with some emergency medical supplies. Celeste thought to grab an armful of she and her husband's clothes, as she had no idea how long they might be stranded on this primitive world. Robert had snagged two portable air-conditioners (as most of his crew had trouble sleeping in the heat), the future chainsaw, and a special survival kit he had put together years before.

  In addition to all of this, the car contained the MCB (Molecular Cutter and Binder), some fishing equipment Doc kept in the trunk, and the holoemitter they had used at Celeste's mother's house.

  “Vox,” the traveler said, gazing over their supplies, “using what we have, how long do you think it will take us to build a time-drive from scratch?”

  For several seconds, the chief engineer stood in thoughtful silence.

  “Around two hundred years,” Vox opined. “Maybe more, because I'll probably be dead in around a hundred or so.”

  Robert shook his head, his jaw muscles flexing.

  “I was thinking the same,” he said. “Meaning, of course, that we might as well just wait until Bill shows up and hitch a ride with him. By which I obviously mean; I might as well. The rest of you will all be dead by then. Even Doc,” he continued, clearly getting angrier as he spoke, “who won't use the regenerator because he likes being middle-aged for some reason.”

  “It's not that I like being middle-aged,” Doc replied.

  “Oh, no,” Robert snapped. “Don't backpedal now, Doc! Don't act like you'd have no problem being regenerated when I don't have a regenerator at hand to put you to the test. You'll last longer than the rest of them, but you'll be dead in a hundred and fifty years or so. For me, that means fifty-plus years of running around alone on a planet filled with dinosaurs, doing my best not to break a hip.”

  “I'm sorry,
Rob,” Doc said. “I suppose I'd never considered this possible scenario.”

  “Nobody's blaming you,” the traveler replied, doing his best to be sincere.

  “You'll live for two-hundred years?” Morgan asked, his eyes on his friend.

  “Probably around two-hundred-and-fifty,” Robert replied. “Although I'm the oldest of us, Morgan, I'm also the youngest. Humans born when I was tend to live around that long. I might even last a little longer because I happen to be in excellent health.”

  “That's awesome!”

  “It is,” the traveler nodded. “Still, I don't plan to beat Sturm simply by outliving his machinations. We've got to do something. I'm just not sure what yet.”

  “It's too bad there isn't a primitive humanoid species on this planet,” Vox chuckled. “If we had a small tribe to start with, we could probably bring the technology level up to 'time-drive' within twenty or thirty years. It's just that there's only so much work we can do on our own.”

  “I'm sure Sturm thought of that when he decided to strand us here,” Robert replied. “Which is good, really. It takes that temptation away from me. If we were actually to do anything like that, we could mess the time-lines up pretty good. As it is, whatever we do should be perfectly safe.”

  “What time is it?” Morgan asked thoughtfully.

  “I don't know, Morgan,” Robert said, gazing into the sky. “Around two o’clock or so, I guess. Look at the sun.”

  “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I mean; what time in the universe, not what time of day.”

  “What?”

  “Does advanced technology exist anywhere in the universe at this point in time?”

  “Sure,” Robert nodded. “All over the place. It's just that we are way out, Morgan. There's no way we'll be able to reach any of it from here.”

  “Can't the car fly us from planet to planet?”

  “It can,” the traveler nodded, “but it's not a ship, Morgan. The nearest inhabitable planet is probably around a month from here via the car. There's no way we could last that long.”