Except for a limited quantity of potato wine, alcohol had been phased out after a drunken and belligerent biochemist murdered his girlfriend. Tobacco, though never popular, proved impossible to grow underground, much to the consternation of the addicted.
“So, Colonel, I understand you want to build a monument in one of the coastal cities,” Willard commented.
“Not exactly. A monolith, something that will stand out, draw the curious.”
“Where? Any place we know? A vacation spot perhaps?” He laughed at his own pun, but no one else seemed to get it.
“The Professor has pinpointed the epicenter of a massive time shift that occurred on July 12th, 2057, just off the Oregon coastline. This is still a bit preliminary, but he believes that date is somehow related to an experimental submarine named ‘Slinker’, captained by his son, George Schumer.” O’Brien slipped off the armrest and into the loveseat beside Willard. “The Professor thinks Captain Schumer will come ashore sometime in our future to find NAORC and to correct the temporal hiccup Slinker gets caught up in. The technical details I’m a bit light on, but the date coincides with our arrival on Earth. That aside, the Professor wants a holoimager placed that will react only to someone who shares his DNA, to help his son find his way here. I told the Professor we’d build something for Captain Schumer to find...like a monolith. If the Professor is right...don't get me wrong, I’m not sure I buy any of this...it may be possible to erase this whole time-line and start over.”
“And how does this sub, Slinker, fit into all this?” Doomes asked, his voice deepened by the smoke.
“The Professor thinks we can use the time machine to send Slinker back to before we activated the beacon on Mars, to warn me not to enter the chamber...stop the Cargan bombardment from ever happening.” The whole idea sounded silly to him once the intoxicant infused his system.
“That doesn’t explain what makes the sub such an important part of this equation.”
“Has to do with the ship’s design. Slinker uses Magnetron tubes, a series of coils arranged about ceramic tubes, for propulsion. By alternating the flow of electricity to the coils, seawater is sucked into, then forced out of the tubes, which generates a powerful electromagnetic field. This is what the Professor believes attracted the Cargan ship we snatched, to Slinker. Since the Cargan ship’s drive was online, the vessel’s impact with the ocean surface created a temporal vortex through which Slinker leaped briefly into the past, then into our future.”
“All a bit technical for my needs,” Willard winked, “so, what about seeding agents among the local population, Colonel?”
“What about them, Willard?” O’Brien smirked, unable to restrain himself.
“Wouldn’t it make sense to have some of our people here and there, to keep an eye out for Schumer’s son?”
“You....you make it sound like secret agent stuff.” O’Brien choked off a giggle, feeling stupid. He only smoked when Jess did, and seldom even then. “But yes, we’ve asked for volunteers to live with those outside the mountain...just in case George doesn’t locate the beacon.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Rathke guffawed, “Great joke, Colonel! How long did it take you to come up with that one?”
O’Brien grinned, high enough now to not care if what he said made sense or not. Doomes chuckled and Jeffries soon joined in. They laughed uproariously until their bellies ached.
From the kitchen, Jessica appeared with a jug of apple cider and a tray of corn chips and dip. She set it down and lingered long enough to catch O’Brien’s eye and winked, then returned to the kitchen.
The women soon joined them to view the latest bioputer generated action vid making the rounds.
Despite the banter, O’Brien gathered enough presence of mind to reflect on their accomplishments. Much remained in preparation for Captain Schumer’s arrival. Providing Professor Schumer was correct in that his son, and Slinker, were the temporal key.
It remained anyone's guess how much longer they had to enjoy the blessings this timeline brought. O’Brien wasn’t comfortable pinning their hopes on George Schumer and Slinker restoring the world, but he fervently prayed that this wasn’t merely the mental meanderings of a crazed old man.
Chapter Fifteen
10:23 Hours July 21, 2386 – Earth (294 years later)
Momentarily overwhelmed and disoriented by their sudden change in fortune, the brief flight aboard the sleek silver flyers lingered as fragments of anxious, disjointed images. When the aircraft settled on a deck, George tried to capture the hushed queries directed at the flyer crews by a throng of blue or green clad med workers, but the general hubbub made that difficult. In a distant part of his brain he wondered why none among them addressed him.
Though he saw little reason to resist, a part of him remained wary, ready to leap and run. Glimmers of logic told him he wouldn't get far, but the mere possibility lent order to reigning chaos. His transfer to a gravpad calmed his frayed nerves further.
Methodically scanned with hand-helds accompanied by nods and gestures, George acquiesced to being quickly and efficiently stripped of equipment, parkas and gloves. Vaguely aware of movement at the periphery of his vision, he felt rather than saw the huge external doors grumble closed, eclipsing the frigid wilderness.
Eric, their rescuer, leaned over George and smiled. “Relax, Captain Schumer. Everyone here knows who you are. We're taking you to our medcenter.” He patted George on the shoulder and hurried off, leaving he and Baider in the care of the shrinking throng of care givers. The hubbub lessened as equipment shut down, but quiet conversation and gentle laughter continued. Now cosseted in this warm and dazzlingly brilliant place, George felt suddenly, immensely secure.
“Where?” Baider asked.
A striking brunette with cheerful hazel eyes took Baider’s hand and glanced over at George. “You’re in Nayork.”
“What is this place?”
Her laugh tinkled, like a crystal charm stirred by a temperate breeze. “The techno-city under the mountain, I believe you call it. To be precise, this chamber is our staging bay, inside the granite cap of a fourteen thousand foot mountain in the middle of the Oregon Cascades. This used to be an astral observatory, and here,” She gestured up at the polished polycrete dome. “Is where the largest telescope in the Northern Federation once peered into the heavens.”
Despite his fuzzy, blurred vision, George noted that the telescope had been replaced by a collection of titanium coils, tubes and a forty-foot long, octagon-shaped emerald cylinder suspended in a gray spherical framework. Beneath this technological wizardry, ten open cargo haulers and twenty silver flyers, in rows of five, shared half the deck with orange maintenance dollies arrayed along the far granite wall. Three stories up, the dome squatted on latticed, zinc-oxide coated truncheons bolted to chromium gliders. The whole assembly rode atop an immense titanium ring.
Though his doubts were receding, George half suspected he might yet be in the grip of a fantastically detailed lucid dream: the transition from bitter cold wilderness to technological comfort no longer disquieting. This was reinforced by the rapidity with which they were whisked from the chamber and into a gravator. It fell forever, then pillowed to a stop long after George thought it ought to. His gravpad close behind Baider’s, they floated into a soft hued corridor lined with people who touched their hands or cried with joy when they passed. Others offered heart-felt, though hurried, greetings or merely smiled.
Met by another throng inside the medcenter, the men were disrobed and gently scrubbed. Unmindful of his nakedness, George gleaned what he could from the constant patter, though it demanded a great deal of concentration. He gathered that the gouge above Baider’s eye and the shotgun lacerations to his side were angry with infection. In afterthought, he tongued the perforation in his cheek, but it seemed to have closed, the vile taste of infection, absent.
The workers took all due care, in that he felt little discomfort while his wounds were cleansed and treated, then coated with pap
er-thin white patches that expanded to fit. At last clothed in soft, pastel blue pajamas, welcome warmth erased the chill that had dogged him since debarking Slinker. Though he didn’t recall being drugged, perhaps he had, which could explain why his vision had become increasingly clouded.
Left in the care of four young men, they were delivered to a small ward and eased onto med sleepers. It soon grew so quiet, the shush of the ventilators dominated. A young woman cluck-clucking over a Readit pad arrived and bustled about, followed by a comely, fortyish blonde who proceeded directly to George's side.
“Hello, Captain Schumer. You too, Baider.” The blonde, a golden vision in a cloud of white, smiled over her shoulder at Baider, who’s sleeper was aligned for sitting. “My name is Linda Jeffries. If either of you need anything, ask. If your injuries become uncomfortable, simply say ‘pain’ out loud. The sonic inhibitor will react accordingly. It was just installed, so it isn’t fully automatic yet, but I understand the software is self-correcting and it soon will be.”
“You called this place Nayork?” George croaked, embarrassed by the coarseness of his voice.
“Yes.” She paused and scrunched up her brows. “ N-A-O-R-C. The National Aeronautical and Oceanographic Research Center. Been so long, I had to think.”
Linda smiled and patted George’s arm. Relief, like a narcotic, effused him.
On the other side of Baider’s sleeper, the young redhead set her readit down on a portable medcon, gave the seaman a blushing peck on the cheek and strolled leisurely from the ward. She glanced back before passing beyond the partially open mobile partition isolating the ward.
Weak and lethargic, fatigue lay on George like a steaming wet blanket. Though his mind cried out anew for tangible reassurance that this was real, his eyelids drooped as if lined with lead. He ground his fists into his eye sockets to clear his vision, but immediately regretted his hasty action. Tender flesh flamed. He blinked several times to loosen his uncooperative eyelids, then struggled to focus on Baider. He could just make out tears coursing down his shipmate’s cheeks. It wounded him. Wendell’s murder and Heather’s last moments rushed in on him. He clenched his jaws to fight back a sob and suppress the stark and unforgiving images. “I’d...I’d...like...like to speak to whomever’s...in charge.”
Linda leaned over and laid a warm hand on his forehead. “Tomorrow, Captain. After you’ve rested. For now you have nothing to do but get better.”
Something about her touch soothed his troubled heart. The debilitating images and emotions surrounding his crewmate’s deaths lost their import. He edged toward sleep, unaware when he finally succumbed.
09:55 Hours July 22, 2386 - Earth
“George.” A rough, masculine voice pierced the shroud of darkness.
“George.” The voice rose an octave and acquired an urgent edge.
“Wha...who...” Roused from a disturbing dream too real to be a figment of his imagination, George peeked at the source of the familiar, yet elusive voice. Baider! George came awake with a start. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No, Cap.”
“We’re here? Under the mountain?” George rubbed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the bristly hairs of his knuckles grated tender flesh.
“Yes.” Lying on his side in the subdued ward lighting, Baider looked beaten, demoralized.
“Holy mother of us all, I thought I was dreaming.”
“You were. Out loud.”
“But...” George squinted at Baider and realized his vision had yet to clear. “My eyes...”
“Snow blindness. The effect is temporary.”
Awareness dawned. He lay back and stared upward at a dull ivory ceiling devoid of pattern or seams. “I can't believe we made it.”
“Yeah.”
Fearing it really was a dream, George blinked several times in a futile effort to clear his vision. “You okay?” Every inch of his body ached.
“Hurtin’, Cap. Big time,” Baider choked.
“Heather?”
Baider balled his fists and thumped them against the mattress. Tears coursed freely down his ruddy, wind-burnished cheeks. A sob escaped his lips before he choked it off.
George groaned. He tried to sit up, but pain lanced his belly wound. With Heather’s death hanging between them, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Pain,” he murmured. The sonimed diminished his physical agony and took the edge off his emotions.
“Hey, how about keeping it down over there. Some of us were asleep.”
Startled, George jerked upright. Agonizing pain radiated to his toes. “Don?” Through a blurred veil, he made out a heavyset figure hunkered down on the edge of the sleeper beyond Baider. “Pain.”
Laced with sadness, Don's joyless baritone filled the room. “Good to see you too, Cap.”
Despite all that had befallen them, George’s spirits soared. He swung his feet off the sleeper and cautiously, painfully, tried to stand. Healing tissue resisted. He gasped and settled for sitting up where he could at least glimpse Don, and another patient beyond.
“Pain!” The agony diminished within seconds. “Owen?”
“Can't you hear him?” Don jerked his head toward his sleeping comrade. “Like a rooting pig. I’m tempted to wrap a pillow around his head.”
Baider grunted and pushed himself up. “How come you guys aren’t back aboard Slinker?” The upper portion of the sleeper formed to support him.
“Never made it. Got hunted down by some scummy-looking types. The last thing I remember was...well, I’m not sure. We were getting shot at...something exploded...Godamighty...” Don rubbed a hand over his close-cropped pate and shook his head. “I thought we were gonners for sure. How about you?”
“Same here.” George choked back an expletive. “Baider and I were...Heather had just...just...the bridge collapsed...and she...was gone. Then these guys showed up.”
“Heather’s dead?” Don whispered, shocked.
“Nothing we could do. Baider tried...but...but she just slipped away.”
“Oh.” The cringe in Don’s voice was unmistakable.
The cost to reach their goal had been horrendous. George hoped that Farrell and Lauren were still safe.
“Have you met the ‘babe’ yet?” Don's attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. The lust seemed forced.
“Who?” Though he couldn’t shake his mounting anxiety, George tried to follow Don's lead, eager for any distraction that might take his mind of the deaths of his friends.
“That blonde honey that patched me up.”
“I don't know. The woman giving orders? Linda Jeffries. Must be the one you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, that’s her.” Don affected a dreamy sigh. “Doctor Linda Jeffries, like an angel of mercy. Couldn’t help but fantasize about being with her. Those eyes...that face...that bod...”
“Normal reaction, even if she were ugly and fat.”
“Naw...”
The illumination in the ward brightened a degree. George sensed movement behind him and, with deference to his injuries, leaned slowly about.
“Good to see you’re feeling well enough to talk about me.” Linda breezed into the ward with an unmistakable air of comfortable authority, emurely attired in tan stretch slacks and an ivory, long-sleeved turtleneck sweater.
George agreed with Don’s assessment of her. “Dr. Jeffries?”
Jaws clenched to muffle a moan, George twisted to see her better, then eased back as she came to stand before him, arms crossed. He squinted, trying to clear the fuzzies away, but his head throbbed with the effort. He relaxed and the throbbing eased. He tried to smile, but only accomplished a weak frown.
“And you are George ‘Cap’ Schumer, Slinker’s commanding officer.” She extended a hand in greeting.
Feeling awkward, George took it. “Yes, ma’am.” He shook her hand twice, but she stayed his hand and cupped it in hers. Strength flowed into him. Warm hands lulled his troubled soul.
�
�Tut, tut. Let’s not be so formal, George.” Her smile deepened. “Here, I’m simply Linda. Doctor Jeffries is reserved for the children.” She turned to include the others with her smiling appraisal. “I’m glad to see you’re well enough to recognize a beautiful woman when you see one. However, Don, not to dash your fantasies, I’m married.”
“My loss,” Don grinned ruefully, but his words held little humor.
“Sorry.” She let go George's hand and faced Don with a smile that could melt any heart. “There are a number of single women here who would love to get to know you, intimately, but unfortunately you have little time.”
“What do you mean, little time?” Though reaching NAORC had been his initial goal, the reminder that their journey was far from over, dampened his spirit.
“I’ll clear that up for you, Captain.”
Chest out, back straight, a square jawed, light skinned man George had seen before strode into the ward. Despite an officer’s carriage, his demeanor bespoke an openness not unlike the doctor's. “If you’re up to it, Captain, I’ll bring in a cart. Time is short. We need to talk.”
“And you are?” Instantly defensive, George stood without thinking. His knees wobbled and for several breaths, he thought he would be sick, but he steadied himself with the sleeper until the vertigo passed. Unwilling to repeat the episode, he eased himself around and sat on the edge of the sleeper, with a little help from Linda.
He stopped short of the sleeper and assumed a parade rest stance. “George, I'm Colonel Kaider O’Brien, USAF. I've been Nayork’s director for the past three hundred years.”
“Impossible!” Confusion flared. It seemed to fit with what they’d learned, but the incongruities denied the truth. “The Mars project is fresh news. Your image is...was...all over the vids. Vidcom did in-depth profiles on every member of your team. You’re on Mars uncovering some alien artifact.” He nodded first to Linda, then to O’Brien. “Are my ship and crew okay, or does that even matter here?”
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