Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “You’ll never get me, Tar,” I said.

  TAR-A-GAL turned suddenly, barked an order and I heard a click. Mr. Mustache and the other Martian instantly appeared on the circular platform.

  “That was universe one,” TAR-A-GAL said. “Our universe. Now that we know what happened in our universe, we can adjust the circumstances so that what happens in the past of another universe will be quite different— isn’t that correct?”

  Mr. Mustache nodded from his position up on the platform. TAR-A-GAL waved for Mr. Mustache to descend the platform. Mr. Mustache stepped down, and followed TAR-A-GAL to the counter where they looked at the diagram of the water cell’s release catches again.

  “Not so simple, eh?” I asked.

  TAR-A-GAL said something to a crewman who then turned and left the room. TAR-A-GAL and Mr. Mustache continued their discussion. In a few more moments the crewman who had gone out came back in; he was holding some kind of small tool and he gave it to Mr. Mustache. JAR-A-GAL pointed at the tool and said a few more words as Mr. Mustache nodded. Then they all looked over to me.

  “We will try again in another universe,” TAR-A-GAL said.

  “You could try again in a thousand universes and you couldn’t get me,” I said.

  “No?” TAR-A-GAL asked. “Are you so sure?”

  TAR-A-GAL waved toward the circular platform and Mr. Mustache stepped on top of it next to the other Martian.

  TAR-A-GAL slashed his hand downward, another click sounded, and Mr. Mustache and his Martian accomplice blinked out of existence.

  Now the oval screen on the right flashed and blurred and focused its picture.

  “Universe Two!” JAR-A-GAL announced.

  Now the screen showed Mr. Mustache in front of the water cell again. This time he wasn’t using a screwdriver. Instead he had something that I recognized as a miniature screw-jack spreading bar. He placed the pincer end of this little jack into the narrow recess of the release catch and then began twisting the top of the jack. He only made a few twists and then stopped. He took the jack out and looked at the release catch, then turned away, smiling.

  TAR-A-GAL shouted something and I heard a click. Both Mr. Mustache and the other Martian stood on the circular platform.

  “Now we will view the results of the work!” TAR-A-GAL exclaimed in ecstasy.

  The viewing screen on the right blurred its images and then re-focused revealing a view of me inside the Chinese Water Torture Cell. The cell was filled with water and I was inside, reaching up, trying to open the release catches for the stocks. I could see myself struggling. I was taking too long. A wave of bubbles escaped from my mouth. My face was turning dark red. I kept struggling, bent upwards to the top of the cell. I dropped back, hanging upside down, my arms flailing the water, my face turning blue— dark blue.

  “How unfortunate,” TAR-A-GAL said.

  All the Martians in the room broke into laughter as I watched myself drowning in the tank.

  “The moment you die in the past of the parallel universe,” TAR-A-GAL said, “you will cease to exist in the corresponding moment in this present universe. Blink out!”

  TAR-A-GAL stared at me, laughing insanely and all of his crewmen joined in with him. I stood still, watching myself die in the past…watching myself die in the present— if I was to believe what TAR-A-GAL had said.

  Suddenly on the left viewing screen I saw myself raise up again and bend at my waist inside the water tank— or I should say I saw a parallel version of myself in another universe do this. My parallel self reached up to the stocks and gave one tremendous push, and the stocks suddenly opened up and released. I saw the feet of my parallel self slip out of the stocks, down into the water, and I saw my head break the water’s surface.

  “Collins! Collins!” I heard my parallel self cough out on the screen.

  TAR-A-GAL roared.

  The viewing screen blurred out.

  “Looks like you’ll have to try again in another universe,” I said. “This is getting tedious.”

  TAR-A-GAL barked orders at Mr. Mustache. The two of them retreated to a corner and I heard the sharp sound of Martian words erupt from TAR-A-GAL. One of the crewmen gave Mr. Mustache a hand weapon. I recognized it as the ray gun Mr. Mustache had fired at me on the train, and from that knew when and where they were planning the next attempt on my life.

  “Do not think that you have saved yourself,” TAR-A-GAL said to me. “There are countless universes to explore, countless times, countless circumstances. We shall soon find the proper time and place for your death. These things must be done carefully. When I assassinated Prince RA-TA-PUR of Mars I had to send the assassin back into parallel universes sixteen times. I will continue sending my messenger of death back into your past as many times as necessary to find just the exact moment when I can blink you into nothingness. We will make another projection into the past of our universe— another— how does one say it in your language? Another dry run— no. Another dress rehearsal. Yes, that’s it. Let’s have another dress rehearsal for your death, for when you— blink out!”

  TAR-A-GAL roared with laughter and then waved Mr. Mustache forward to mount the circular platform yet again. Mr. Mustache stepped up on to the platform and TAR-A-GAL waved for the other Martian to step down. As soon as the other Martian had cleared the platform, TAR-A-GAL slashed his hand down through the air, I heard a click, and Mr. Mustache disappeared from off of the platform.

  The viewing screen on the left flashed with light and focused to show a view of Mr. Mustache and I standing on the roof of the train headed north toward the Sonoma Valley. Then Jack appeared on the screen climbing up on the roof.

  On the screen I heard myself shout: “Watch him, Jack!”

  I saw Mr. Mustache take the little metal box out and hold it up, and heard myself shout: “He’s got something! Watch it!”

  Mr. Mustache disappeared instantly from his place on the viewing screen and instantly appeared on the circular platform in front us. TAR-A-GAL shouted, slashed his hand downward through the air, and Mr. Mustache disappeared from off the circular platform and reappeared within the scene being projected on the viewing screen; he had appeared directly behind me on the roof of the train.

  I heard Jack shout on the screen say: “Hey! He’s behind you!”

  I saw myself spin about on the screen and Mr. Mustache blink out of view in front of me— and simultaneously blink into view on the circular platform once again.

  TAR-A-GAL violently slashed his hand down through the air, and the click sounded and sent Mr. Mustache back on to the screen again— this time on the roof of the train back in his original position between Jack and me.

  “Behind you again on the other side!” I heard Jack shout on the screen.

  Then I saw myself turn about and struggle with Mr. Mustache. I could now see how close he came to almost pushing me over the side of the moving train. But then I saw my sudden maneuver— my leg around the back of Mr. Mustache’s leg and my sudden shove to his shoulders sending him out over the side of the train. There was a blur in the images on the screen— then a refocusing to show Mr. Mustache land on the earthen embankment below the train tracks and sprawl there unmoving. Then the screen went black and Mr. Mustache instantly appeared on the circular platform— instantly appeared in an upright position, only to suddenly collapse in a heap to the platform’s surface. A crewman ran forward and bent over Mr. Mustache, put his hand to his throat, and then looked up and said something in Martian.

  TAR-A-GAL roared.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, looking about the room. “Did I do something to offend?”

  The Martian bending over Mr. Mustache said, “You’ve killed him.”

  “Blink out,” I said.

  “Silence!” TAR-A-GAL shouted.

  Several Martians picked up Mr. Mustache and carried him out of the room.

  “One down— and how many more to go?” I asked. “How many more of the gorillas on board this bucket do you plan to use u
p, TAR? I wouldn’t let him use me up that way, boys. Now is the time for mutiny. Who wants to start it?””

  “I am not finished with you,” TAR-A-GAL said. “As I told you, there are many more times, many more places. We will find the proper circumstances for your death— and soon.”

  One of the Martians at the control board said something suddenly. TAR-A-GAL turned and went over to him. The two of them spoke rapidly back and forth. I could see that TAR-A-GAL was becoming panicked.

  “Everything all right over there, TAR?” I asked.

  This time TAR-A-GAL ignored me. He was listening to the Martian at the control board.

  Then suddenly a tremendous rumble passed through the bulkheads of the ship, and, beneath us, the floor seemed to tip up at an angle. I knew that this meant there was a disruption in the ship’s internal artificial gravity field. For a moment I felt light on my feet, and then the room seemed to level out. The Martians began talking among themselves. TAR-A-GAL shouted out and everyone in the room fell silent.

  TAR-A-GAL bent over the control board again for a moment. He spoke to one of the crewmen in low tones and then straightened up and stepped forward, and barked some orders in Martian. Two crewmen took me by my arms and started pushing me toward the door.

  “Don’t tell me the party’s over so soon,” I said. “What happened to all those other times and places? Did you run out of them, or something?”

  TAR-A-GAL said, “I have just been informed that we have been frozen in an instant of time. The entire universe surrounding this ship has been frozen in all its motions. Something has just happened in Sonoma Valley to create this time-lock. And the Bell of Time on the floor of the ocean has disappeared. It has projected into another time— somewhere into the past. Without the Bell, we cannot effectively operate our time machine on board the ship here. We now must take measurements and make calculations to determine exactly where and when the Bell has projected along our past time-line. We will then attempt a time projection with this ship to retrieve the Bell. Until then, you are of no further use to me.”

  TAR-A-GAL spoke an order to the two Martians who had their hands around my arms, and they shoved me out through the door.

  On board the U.S.S. Cypher Mr. Tesla, Mr. Czito, and Lt. Nimitz tried to come to grips with the situation that faced them. They stood in the pilot’s cabin and looked down upon the Pacific Ocean. The surface of the sea was frozen still like a solid object. Its white caps were unmoving peaks upon a blue plain. They approached the off-limits cordon established by the warships. In its midst a great funnel-shaped chasm in the surface of the ocean yawned downward to the sea floor, to the very spot where the Bell once stood. Now there was nothing to be seen down there but a muddy expanse of ground.

  Suddenly, flitting like a gnat above the surface of the sea, they caught sight of the Martian airship in the sky. As they approached closer they could see that the airship was rapidly appearing and disappearing from view at a rate of about once every second.

  Lt. Nimitz looked through a pair of binoculars.

  “It’s the Martians, all right,” Lt. Nimitz said. “What do you make of it, Mr. Tesla?”

  “They’re shifting in and out of our time-line,” Mr. Tesla said.

  The pigeon, which was perched on the pilot’s control board, turned to Mr. Tesla.

  “I believe,” Mr. Tesla said, “that they have been making a direct interface with the Bell on the floor of the ocean below us.”

  “An interface?” Nimitz asked. “For what purpose?”

  “I think they were using the Bell to power a time machine on board their ship,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “They’re traveling in time?” Nimitz asked.

  “I believe that both their ship as a whole— and individual crew members within their ship— have been traveling in time,” Mr. Tesla said. “But now the Bell has projected out of this present space-time continuum and the Martians have lost their time-reference. They are shifting in and out of the time-line of our own ship.”

  Mr. Tesla turned to the pilot and said, “Take us down to the surface of the ocean.”

  The pilot began making the Cypher’s characteristic pendulum swing maneuver. In a few seconds they hovered directly above the yawning chasm in the ocean’s unmoving waves. The place where the Bell had stood on the floor of the ocean— the circular floor of tiles— could be clearly seen. But the Bell, at the center of that circle, was no longer present.

  “The Bell has projected to another dimension,” Mr. Tesla said. “And from that plane I believe it has moved backward in time.”

  “And the Martians are trying to follow the Bell back into time?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “I believe so,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “They could do that?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “I believe they have that capability,” Mr. Tesla said. “Their erratic appearances and disappearances indicate that they are now re-configuring the torsion fields of their airship, probably trying to match the frequency of the Bell when it projected backwards in time. I believe they have the capability to tune the field of their ship to generate a time-reversed wave which would propel them back through time and space.”

  “What about us?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “I believe,” Mr. Tesla said, “we could engineer a time travel function into this ship at great risk. Considering the alternative, we have no choice but to attempt it.”

  “How can we do it without an interface with the Bell?” Mr. Czito asked.

  “We will have to create our own vortex compression domain just as the Martians are no doubt doing. We will do this by counter-rotating the electro-gravitic fields surrounding the Cypher’s hull at a frequency matching that of the Bell immediately before its disappearance. We have that frequency in the ship’s recordings, and we must use it to re-calibrate the ship’s on-board computing system. If we tune to the correct frequency, we will be captured by the time-reversed waves of the Martian airship and the Bell and be drawn back with them through time and space. Since we are in a time-lock, we will have to create our own artificial time reference if we are to return to 1915.”

  “How will we do that?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “We’ll use a crewman’s body as a reference,” Mr. Tesla said. “We will isolate him electro-gravitically in the etheric scanning chamber and then use the time system of his body as our reference.”

  “I’ll get a volunteer,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “I will need you and Mr. Czito to accompany me to the engine room,” Mr. Tesla said.

  Down below in a bunk, Jack suddenly sat up. The morphine that the ship’s doctor had administered was now taking effect, and his mind was beginning to clear. A medic sat next to him, taking his pulse.

  “How am I doing?” Jack asked.

  “Blood pressure’s back to normal,” the medic said.

  The ship’s doctor stuck his head through the door.

  “You look much better, Mr. London,” the doctor said.

  “I feel a bit better,” Jack said. “What’s going on out there?”

  The ship’s doctor looked down at the medic and then back over to Jack.

  “Pure hell,” the doctor said evenly.

  “That’s what I thought,” Jack said.

  “We’re in some kind of time-freeze,” the doctor said. “Mr. Tesla and Lt. Nimitz are working to get us out of it.”

  “If anyone can,” Jack said, “Mr. Tesla can. Do you have any word about my wife?”

  “Nothing new,” the doctor said. “We think she’s still a prisoner of the Martians.”

  “Her and Houdini,” Jack said.

  “That’s right,” the doctor said. “Now there is nothing you can do, Mr. London, except rest. Those are your orders: rest.”

  “My orders,” Jack said, slumping back against the bunk, exhausted.

  The doctor nodded down at the medic, and the medic stood up and went out the door.

  “Doctor,” Jack said, “when you can— could you ask Mr. Tesla to come i
n here…to see me.”

  “I’ll convey your request,” the doctor said. “Now get some rest.”

  Jack nodded and closed his eyes, and the doctor went out of the room.

  In a few minutes Mr. Tesla came in to the room where Jack was lying in the bunk.

  “Mr. London,” Mr. Tesla said quietly.

  Jack opened his eyes.

  “You wanted to see me,” Mr. Tesla said.

  Jack sat up in his bunk.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “I wanted to ask you: can you save my wife?”

  Mr. Tesla sat down in front of Jack.

  “I’m going to do all I can,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “What’s happened down there?” Jack asked. “Is the earth disintegrating into thin air?”

  “We have stopped the dimensional shifts you were experiencing down on your ranch,” Mr. Tesla said. “The aerials we planted stabilized that phenomenon. They drew power from my Wardencliff Station on Long Island and distributed it out in pulses across the valley. Essentially, we turned off the time machine beneath Sonoma Mountain. But now we are caught in a time-freeze. We are trapped in a single instant of time— and the Bell out on the ocean floor has now disappeared along with the Martian airship.”

  “Disappeared?” Jack asked. “Where?”

  “I believe they have projected backwards in time,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Can we go after them?” Jack asked.

  “Possibly,” Mr. Tesla said. “We are trying to adjust the controls of this airship in order to do that.”

  “But you think you can do it,” Jack said.

  “I think it is possible,” Mr. Tesla said. “I can’t promise you or anyone else positive results. We can only try.”

  Jack nodded.

  Mr. Tesla rose to go.

  “Mr. Tesla,” Jack said. “After I rest a bit, can I come up with you and the others and watch operations?”

  Mr. Tesla looked down at Jack a moment.

  “The doctor has just informed me that he has given you a shot of morphine,” Mr. Tesla said.