Zero Time

by M. P. Swinnerton

  Ston was to grow into a fine image of his father, being just as dark and handsome as Zon, and fortunately showed no signs of the fiery, uncontrollable temperament that his mother displayed.

  Everything went smoothly for some years, until the time came when Stef thought she was beginning to show signs of aging, and one day when she and Zon were alone, she asked him what he was going to do when she was too old for him. Zon was upset at this question, as he really loved this woman, but he also knew that following the natural progression of time, the signs of age would soon begin to ravage Stef's beautiful face and body.

  “My darling Stef, please allow me to let you have the injections to enable you to live forever. It would be so easy: you are still young enough to remain a perfect woman and I will then desire you for ever!”

  Stef had known all along that this time would inevitably come when she started to age, but her belief in remaining as she was created would not allow her to have the injections. She explained to Zon that it would be against all her feelings and beliefs to live longer than was naturally meant for her, and told him that she wanted to return to live with her own people until her natural death took place. She did agree, however, to allow Zon to ensure that their son, Ston, had the necessary injections to allow him the power of longevity.

  Ston had fortunately inherited his father's longevity genes anyway, but Zon still promised Stef that he would make sure that Ston maintained the necessary health checks, as there would probably be some mixed gene malfunctioning and possibly Ston could develop age-related problems, even though he would not necessarily die of old age.

  Eventually the day came for the departure of Stef and this was a great blow to Zon; he had really grown to love and admire this great leader of the Outlanders and, although they only had the one son, he knew this boy would grow up to be a great man alongside himself.

  On the other hand, his mistress Uvella remained forever young and beautiful. She was a kind and loving person and was a good mother to Zon's first children, and Zon had also grown quite attached to this gentle lady. The fire and passion was not quite there in their lovemaking, but Zon still felt a strong affinity with her and never once had to chide her or curb her temper as he had had to on so many occasions with Stef.

  Although Zon now spent more and more time with the lovely Uvella, he still would not agree to her coming to live with him in Santa Barbara. This was still his and Stef's home, and deep inside he hoped that maybe Stef would return to him.

  CHAPTER 37

  Everyday life continued pretty smoothly for a while without any major disasters until one day when a report came through to Zenith that there was a strange problem occurring in the Outlanders’ area. Sightings had been made of huge flies in the area, and although the Outlanders had agreed to place Electrical Fly-Killing Zappers in all of their shops and cafes, these machines were becoming very ineffective.

  The problem appeared to be caused by the fact that Outlanders still buried their dead in the ground, which had not been objected to by the Zelites, but the major issue now was that before the burials took place, the corpses were left to lie in open coffins in chapels for days before they were sealed for interment.

  The heat and smell of the dead bodies had attracted the flies. Little or no attention had been paid to the hatching larvae of the flies that had managed to escape from the greenhouse fiasco. The crisis had arisen before the Outlanders had become aware of the problem. These fly larvae had become mutated by the experiments carried out in the greenhouses and, as well as causing the carnivorous plants to metamorphose and enlarge, the experimental methods had also caused the flies to become affected by the modifying systems used in this research.

  The horrible problem had been brought to a head when a young girl had taken a bunch of flowers to the cemetery to place on her mother's grave. As she strolled along the paved pathway running through the center of the cemetery, the girl bent down to pick up one of the plastic water bottles that had been placed by the water tap for the convenience of the mourners, and as she tried to straighten herself up again, she felt a dead weight land on her shoulders. She tried to flick the object off by brushing her shoulders with her hands. The girl felt a rushing of wings and the sound of a loud buzzing when the fly lifted itself off her and fell to the ground slightly dazed. The Dipteran was about half a meter in length and had an even larger wingspan. Its stunned state did not last very long and it quickly took flight and soared way above the girl.

  The young girl ran screaming through the cemetery and was rushing back towards the town when a passer-by stopped her and, comforting her with his arms around her shoulders, managed to calm her down and asked her to describe her predicament.

  The man took the girl back to her own home and explained to her relations what he had found out from the youngster. He then suggested to two of her older brothers that they should go back to the cemetery and try to locate this Dipteran fly. He suggested they take a large fishing net to try and catch this monster and also as a precaution, if it was as large as the girl had described, some large batons to hit the thing, should it attack them.

  On arrival at the cemetery, the three men cautiously walked towards the spot where the girl claimed to have seen the fly and as they approached the water collection area, they were shocked to see a swarm of at least fifty or sixty massive flies surrounding the water taps. They were huge! Absolutely immense insects! Unbelievably large! The buzzing and droning could be heard quite distinctly before the men could actually make out their physical shapes. “Crumbs, what the devil do you think we should do?” the older man whispered to his companions.

  “Hell, man, I don't know about you two, but I am definitely out of here as quick as I can,” the youngest brother retorted and, without another word, the three men turned on their heels and ran for their dear lives.

  Of course, as soon as they arrived back on the main street, they stopped to gain their breath and the older man told them that he was going to the local Zelite Sheriff's Station to inform him of the predicament. They decided it would be more convincing if the three of them went to the Station, as it would be more plausible than if there was just the one older man.

  The old man explained the position to the official in charge of the Sheriff's Office, who immediately sent out an Investigating Team to corroborate the story. He asked the witnesses to sign their testimonies and, thanking them, told them to go home and say nothing about the happenings until the situation was clarified. He explained to the men that it would be foolhardy to scaremonger unless the situation could be judged properly.

  When the Investigating Team arrived at the scene, it was patently clear to them that here indeed was a huge problem. They reported back to their Officer by mobile link and asked for orders on how to proceed. “Just lock the cemetery gates so that no one can enter, and get back here. I will be in touch with Zenith to receive instructions on what to do about these gigantic flies,” the Officer told the Team.

  Zenith was in his own study room when the message came through to him. He decided not to disturb Zon, who he knew was having a few private difficulties of his own, deciding instead to go and find out what was causing this massive distortion of growth among the Dipterans. Zenith had already guessed what the problem was; in fact, he was surprised that the problem had not happened earlier.

  He had on more than one occasion advised Zon to order Stef to change these drawn-out burial ceremonies and instead to make sure the corpses were interred immediately upon death. Zon reluctantly hesitated to give these orders to Stef and the Outlanders, as he knew that when he did, he would have another flaming row on his hands. Now the time had come when he really had no option but to tell Stef what had happened and the reason for it. He carefully explained to her that there could have been a really nasty conclusion to this episode and the flies could have killed the young girl. He finally persuaded her that this type of burial had to stop for everyone's sake, and Stef eventually agreed to ensure that their corpses were placed in
refrigerated coffins until the final burials.

  Luckily, Zenith had already made provisional plans for a dilemma such as this, and sent instructions for a selected eradication force of robots to attend to this particular situation. They were equipped with deadly laser-projected chemical shooters, and the robotic team was soon able to kill and dispose of these giant Dipterans and their hatching larvae without too much of a problem.

  CHAPTER 38

  It was odd, very strange, most peculiar, this ‘Voice’ seemingly coming from nowhere. Zenith was listening in to his outer-space receiver, as he often did, to keep a check on any untoward happenings in space, and was fine-tuning a certain frequency when he again heard the ‘Voice’ quite clearly this time.

  The message he was receiving appeared to be coming from a male person. This person did not speak with a recognizable accent; he seemed to be speaking with a foreign pronunciation, yet Zenith could still fully understand what he was saying. The voice was melodic and had an echoing, tinkling, bell-like quality.

  “Listen, people of Planet Zero, we are universal space and time travelers. We are invisible to you, as is our space ship. You cannot see us, but we can see you. This is because we are from a different time dimension. We are from your future, which is the present time for us. We are able to travel back in time and space, as such time and space has already happened for us and we can relive it, but you cannot come forward to our time, as this has not yet happened in your dimension.”

  Zenith tried broadcasting his reply to these outsiders. He knew he was tuned into the correct frequency and, with a slow but confident voice, he asked of them what was their position and who they were exactly. The fascinating voice replied, “At this present time, we are here in your galaxy, but you have been unaware of our existence, as we are invisible to you. We are here as watchdogs of the universe and it is our duty and aim to prevent any major disasters occurring in our universe that could be avoided if at all possible. We travel through the time spheres, keeping a watchful eye on the universe and we have paused in your space for the time being, as we have realized that your planet is in great danger of disintegrating shortly. We wish to warn you of a terrible impending disaster that may occur unless you take heed of our warnings. Do you realize that the planet's magma is spewing out from the seabed and forming mountains under the oceans? This in turn is going to cause tremendous destruction in many places due to the sea flooding the inland areas. You must have realized that the global warming has reversed the natural process of things and now the planet is cooling down due to the effect of the melting ice flows. Although you have combated the actual global warming, you have not been able to balance the required perfect atmosphere to survive, and we are here to advise you to leave this planet and seek somewhere else for your people to live. We urge you to take our advice seriously. We know that you still have time to save yourselves. That is why we are here to warn you. But you must take action sooner rather than later. You have been warned, friends!”

  Zenith drew a sharp intake of breath before replying, “Yes, you are correct my friends, we are aware that Planet Zero is shriveling up gradually, but we understand from our scientists that we still have eons of time before we need to take drastic action.”

  The magical voice then replied that he had done all in his power to warn them and now it was up to Planet Zero to take heed of this advice and take the necessary action, or not. There was nothing else they could do, as due to the time differentiates in space they could not physically be of any assistance.

  Zenith tried to keep the strangers in conversation, but they courteously said goodbye and wished Planet Zero's inhabitants the best of luck and then switched off their transmission. The GM man was slightly flustered by this weird incident and, after trying vainly several times to get back in touch with the strangers, he switched off his search radio and contacted Zon to tell him what had happened.

  The Zelite Leader was a little perturbed by this incident and asked Zenith to keep on trying to contact the supposed protectors to see if they could elucidate on their warnings, but after several attempts, Zenith had to give up the ghost, and told Zon that in his opinion this had been some hoax on the part of one of their impetuous Zelite youths.

  Zon reminded Zenith that, due to their restricted youth population, they could count on their fingers the number of young people that could possibly be involved. He told Zenith that he personally knew all the youths, and in his opinion, none of them would dream of doing such a daft thing. He instructed Zenith to check again with the planet's geological advisers to see what the present position was regarding the shrinking of the heat core of Planet Zero, and to report back to him when definite information was available.

  The incident was just about forgotten until one day when Zenith was walking towards his sleeping quarters through one of the internal corridors, he saw torchlight heading towards him, but the strange thing was that the torch was at the height of his hips and appeared to be traveling along by itself. There was no one actually holding it. It eerily passed by Zenith and carried on in the opposite direction to him.

  Zenith was baffled at what he had seen and stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds. He had turned round to watch this light progressing out of sight when suddenly, one of his friends stepped through one of the corridor doors and asked him what on earth he was doing there, standing with his mouth wide open. The GM man smiled at his friend, but thought better than to tell him what he had just seen.

  “Oh sorry, Zoll,” he stammered, “I thought I saw a rat, but I was mistaken; it was just a figment of my imagination. I had a small blob in my eye and it must have been that. I really must get my eyes checked out tomorrow. How are things with you, Zoll?”

  But Zenith knew that what he had seen was not just a figment of his imagination; it was for real. He thought better than to tell anyone else about this incident, and again, almost forgot all about it until one day when he was sat having a drink with Zon, they both saw the same thing this time. One of the drinking glasses suddenly rose up into the air and flew slowly around their heads until it landed once more back on the table.

  “Jeez, Zenith, am I seeing things or did that glass just get up by itself and hover around the table?” Both men knew that something bizarre had just occurred. After seeing this phenomenon together with Zon, the GM man went on to describe to his friend what he had seen when the torchlight had appeared. They tried to think of various reasons as to how these incidents could have occurred, but could come up with no plausible answers.

  When they stood up to leave the clubroom where they were having their drinks, Zon went to pick up his shoulder cloak when, as if by magic, the garment rose up from the seat next to him where he had originally placed it, and wrapped itself around his shoulders. Both men watched this strange occurrence and realized that they must still have the company of the time and space travelers.

  “Zenith, we must find some way of being in voice contact with these universal watchdogs. Any suggestions?” said Zon.

  “I think I may, in fact, have a way in which we can be in direct touch with these space travelers,” confirmed Zenith.

  Zon asked Zenith to elucidate and Zenith described his theory that, knowing these folk were still around them, he would write a message to them on paper and get them to answer in the same way. Zenith thought that these Space Protector Travelers must be able to write, as they had already demonstrated that they could physically move and lift things. Even though they could not be seen or heard, they should be able to converse through written questions and answers. Zon agreed and the two men found a sheet of clean white paper and wrote in clear writing:

  “HAVE YOU ANY NEW MESSAGES FOR US?”

  They then placed the paper on a table and left the pen next to it and waited. Nothing happened for a few minutes and both men began to think that this was not going to be the right way of contacting the travelers, when to their utter amazement, the pen slowly began to rise in the air until it reached the paper and i
t began writing a message: “We are leaving your time era now and just want to remind you of your danger still. Try and leave as quickly as possible. We will not be in contact again as we are due in another time sphere now. Try and communicate with us. Goodbye and Good Luck—from your Time Travel Friends.”

  Zenith quickly picked up his pen and wrote a thank you note to the travelers, explaining that they were indeed actively seeking another planet for them to live on, and hoped that the time travelers had a safe journey to wherever they were traveling. Zon had been perplexed at the final request of the Time Travelers for him to try and communicate. Had they not already told him that they would be out of his time zone from now on?

  Zenith turned to Zon and urged him to make strategic plans for their transfer to another planet, as they all must now be very aware of the disaster that was facing their planet unless something was done very soon.

  CHAPTER 39

  The following few years passed without any major incidents and then, one day whilst Zon was visiting Uvella, she turned to him and reminded him that the time had come when his first-born son, Zarn had reached perfection in his physical and mental growth and it was time for him to attain the status of a complete and fully fledged Zelite. He should now receive the Ceremony of Permanence, called “Permanere”, ensuring that he would remain permanently in his current physical state.

  Zon was quite shocked to realize that his eldest son, Zarn, was now ‘mature’ and was probably ready for the ceremony to take place, which would allow him to remain forever young. Zon had always thought of his children as youngsters and could not believe that his eldest son was now old enough to ‘Permanere’. Zon discussed the matter at length with Uvella. He said he could not give his son permission to ‘Permanere’ yet, as, in Zon's opinion, the boy was still immature and was not yet properly a man.