The Time Ender

by Debra Chapoton

  I had a feeling like ants beneath the surface of my brain. I prepared myself for another vision, but no vision came and the next thing I did see was the hallway of cells. I hesitated, but Marcum had my wrist and he pulled me forward. I thought he’d at least try to open the cells, but we passed through and out the other end. This wasn’t the way to the room where Stetl-glet was before, but it was a royal residence after all and he probably did business from the royal office and the royal dining room and the royal whatever room too.

  Royal dining room, it was. We entered a spacious chamber with four lethargic guards, a table with a miniscule amount of food on it, and the half-Gleezhian, half-Klaqin full-fledged enemy: Stetl-glet. At our sudden appearance he had the bleached and breathless face of a man whose breakfast was threatening to reverse course. Marcum whispered to me, “Don’t say anything.”

  “Marcum!”

  “Tratl.” Marcum made a sign with his fingers and then said, “I mean … Stetl-glet. We are ready for the final ceremony and the permanent peace treaty.”

  “And Makril is here?”

  Makril? What the heck did she have to do with Stetl-glet? I kept my mouth shut, but I had new questions.

  “Makril will come, yes. I request that my parents, Krimar and Pauro, be released to assist me in the ceremony.”

  “So requested, so complied.” He gave a muttered order to a guard who left the room immediately.

  “Would you like to join me? I can send for more food.” He looked directly at me. “Our stores are dwindling, but before we lost the last of the great herds we dried and powdered the meats. And after the final harvests our great scientists found a way to prepare the grains to make them last for generations.” His eyes narrowed on me. “We are, unfortunately, the last generation.”

  As instructed by Marcum I did not say anything, but I lowered my eyes. I hoped he’d take it as respectful pity and not what I was really thinking: starving’s too good for you.

  When I looked up again I saw that Stetl-glet’s complexion was changing. His cheeks changed fairly quickly from livid pink and green into a more Gleezhian gray.

  Marcum spoke. “We will not eat now, Stetl-glet. I have learned from my mate, the time-bender, that the others have brought foods and drinks in preparation for the celebration.”

  “Good,” Stetl-glet said, rising and tossing the last of something obnoxious at the closest guard. He swallowed it without chewing, like a hungry dog. To the other guards he gave a command in Gleezhian and Marcum whispered to me that he was sending them ahead to gather all the grooms.

  Grooms?

  CHAPTER 20

  #BendingPacingStoppingEnding

  THE CEREMONY WAS not what I expected despite my visions of it. Marcum and I followed a parade of vehicles out onto the red plains beyond the royal crater. Prisoners were marched there; some fell repeatedly because of the lurching of the land. Native Gleezhians came from all directions, on foot or in small bouncing transports.

  Tremendously large ships hovered above while giant weapons were carted forward, jerking along as if missing a wheel, pulled by Klaqins from the first citizen exchange. They looked terribly old, but they were sure-footed on the moving terrain.

  The place was enormous and so, so crowded. It had the reverse configuration of an arena, more like a squashed pyramid, high in the center. And the center was where we were headed.

  I could see the purlass capsule. Six Fourth Commanders, quite weary looking, pulled the platform it was on the last few feet into position on the third tier where it wobbled in sync with the land. I knew now that that was a decoy. Off to the far right came a similar sized object, blanketed by a colorful netting. The straps attached to it were pulled by six more young men wearing helmets. I stiffened as I watched, trying to make out if one of them was Alex. I couldn’t tell; they all wore black, plus the helmets. I wondered if the helmets were for communication, battle or ear protection. Maybe they expected an effect from the capsules like traveling through the space alley.

  Marcum nudged me. “Do you remember the original plan?”

  I tilted my head in a questioning look but didn’t speak. If he meant his and Coreg’s original effort to kidnap me, bring me to Klaqin and create a new race with my genes and, uh, someone else’s I certainly did remember that.

  With a smidge of reluctance I nodded and he said, “I devised another, better plan. I intended to come to Gleezhe and stop time for them so they could build and not grow older. Meanwhile you and the others would be on Klaqin, growing the civilization, re-arming and building too. Unfortunately, my stoppages here were … warped. Something happened to me when I came out of decontamination. I didn’t react well to one of their elements here … chelurium.”

  Chelurium. I rolled the word around my tongue and wondered if it was anything like purlass. And why was he telling me this now?

  He took my hand and held it in both of his, not exactly creeping me out, but pretty close. Our vehicle reached the last rise. “Plans change,” he said. I rolled my eyes and watched the second platform wheel into grooves next to the first one. If Alex and the other time-pacers were inside that one without a bender like me—and if my brother really was on his way back to Earth—I couldn’t figure out how they’d be able to effect what we had practiced. Regardless, I needed to be inside that capsule.

  There was a lot of commotion going on in the sky—darting Parallaxers and their Gleezhian counterparts—but I kept my eyes on the capsules and the teams pulling them. Cue the magician. I saw them do the switcheroo, revealing the genuine capsule and draping the fake one with the colorful netting while all eyes down here were focused heavenward.

  I thought back to when Alex told my mom that we’d built a purlass capsule that would shield whoever was inside from the effects of bending and pacing. What he hadn’t told her was those inside would be doing the bending and pacing in a coordinated alternation and fluctuation to upset the time-space continuum. Hashtag theory.

  Coreg warned that if the capsule wasn’t ready and if the fighter starships weren’t fully resupplied by now they would hand me over to Gleezhe and evacuate themselves to Earth. There was a governmental plan, Marcum’s plan, a resistance plan, a refugee plan, and probably, most assuredly Stetl-glet’s plan. A stab of fear finally gave my vocal cords a prompting, preceded by a hiccup.

  “Marcum, what do you think Stetl-glet plans to do?”

  “I believe him. He is honest. I knew him well at the Academy and he desires peace as much as we do.” His voice caught on the last word, but maybe that was due to the jolt when a land-wave rolled under us.

  “Right. So that’s why he kept attacking us on Klaqin.”

  That fact shut Marcum up and made his face pull into a question mark. “The attacks continued?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  Our transport bobbed to a halt and I pulled my hand out of Marcum’s. I wiped the clammy sheen of sweat onto my thigh and rubbed my nose furiously in case there was anyone special out there somewhere watching me. The “wherefore art thou” line popped into my head and I changed Romeo’s name to Alex.

  Alas, we exited along with a number of other officials, prisoners, refugees, guards, and, up front, Stetl-glet himself, surrounded by large, hump-free soldiers. The vehicles moved away and suddenly, all around the top of the center area, a new rumbling began. The sky fleet widened their circling watch.

  From the dry, red Gleezhian ground several rows of thick, carved pillars erupted. Marcum was surprised, but not me. In my vision—when I was in the cavern with Coreg and that traitor Za and Marcum’s parents and the others—I’d seen pillars but with ugly monster faces; these were plain. I expected to see a small purlass capsule next with a hooded figure inside, but nothing else rose from the ground. I wasn’t doing any more time-bending, yet there was a slowness to every movement. The Gleezhian sun beat a chilling heat on my neck and head.

  The ceremony started with a wail from Stetl-glet’s warriors. A contingent of commanders and honored guests, in
cluding that double-crossing group led by Za, spread out around the center. Two flat-faced Gleezhian guards came up to Marcum and held out a black body covering. At first I thought it was a small gymnast’s leotard, but Marcum stretched it over his boots and up over his white uniform to his shoulders. He slid his arms into the sleeves and let the front flap hang loosely below his chin. The guards jerked him away, but left me standing there stunned. Stunned, because now Marcum looked like the encapsulated figure of the hologram Za showed us in the cavern and the one I saw in my vision. The guards marched him up to Stetl-glet and pushed him down into a kneeling position at his feet just as another tremor shook everyone.

  Two small guards moved into position on either side of me. Then a small capsule, the mini version of ours, rolled into view, towed by Marcum’s parents.

  And most shocking of all: inside was an impossibly perfect copy of Marcum, moving, pressing his hands against the inside walls like a mime in a box, and bringing so much shouting and cheering from the Gleezhians that you’d have thought he was a national hero.

  I flicked my eyes to the Marcum on the ground and then back to the Marcum in the capsule. Pauro and Krimar were pulling what they must have thought was their imprisoned son up to the peak of the center.

  Eardrum breaking noise preceded the next surprise. Dozens of Klaqin as well as Gleezhian women were pushed into place beside the monstrous totems.

  Krimar and Pauro parked their burden near the last pillar, bumping into it and knocking the capsule off its stand. Pauro pulled Krimar out of the way as the pillar crumbled, dropping layers of rock that broke against the capsule’s sides and disintegrated into dust around the base. It was a déjà vu moment for me. I glared at the capsule and watched the prisoner within continue to bravely punch and kick against the sides. If that was the real Marcum who had I been married off to?

  Something caught my eye: a movement from the farthest Gleezhian warrior to the nearest guard at Stetl-glet’s side. A second wave of expectancy rippled through the ranks, making them hunch over, readying themselves. The last of the Klaqin men and women and Earth’s half-breed descendants were driven to the second tiers below where I stood. It was a fierce-looking army that surrounded us. The dusty red Gleezhian wind blew up and over the crown of this arena. Everything was alive with suspense.

  I couldn’t stomach the dreadful excitement. I was half eager for a triumphant treaty, half terrified of some unimaginable failure and an impending massacre. Goose bumps danced over my skin. Maybe I wanted the massacre.

  Stetl-glet’s voice boomed across the expanse first in Gleezhian and then in Klaqin, ordering Marcum to rise.

  “There will be a treaty, a peace forever, as we lay down our weapons, share our planets’ treasures, and expand our scientific knowledge.”

  A cheer started with some reluctance, but Stetl-glet gave encouragement to his people and to the Klaqins who probably saw him as one of them. He sure could pass for either race. And Marcum was cheering too, raising his arms and smiling. The hooting and clucking and whistling reached a crescendo. Swooping starships broadcasted his words to the farther ends. Stetl-glet waited for the noise to die down before addressing the crowd again.

  “But with this extraordinary compromise comes a great sacrifice.” He paused and let those words sink in; they were repeated over our heads like rolling thunder. My eyes searched for the guys with the helmets and found them guarding the fake capsule, the glass replica made with Klaqin sand, rolling it slowly down to a lower tier, leaving behind the one I needed to get to. Fat chance. Said capsule was guarded by six humped-back hairy dudes—guess they must have been in space when Marcum did a healing stoppage. One of them looked my way and signaled at the twin guards standing next to me. They grasped my elbows and lifted me into an air-march toward the capsule. I thought it best not to resist.

  I almost missed Stetl-glet’s next statement: “I introduce to you all an important emissary from Klaqin: First Commander Gzeter.” And I almost missed the capsule guard’s nod at me, but I sure didn’t miss how he rubbed his tan hand across his nose. Twice.

  That shocked me into some involuntary time-bending. The next few Gleezhian minutes played out calmly, the ground swinging in pendulum fashion, but ever so slowly.

  The guards plunked me down at the capsule as Gzeter stepped forward to stand between Marcum and Stetl-glet, his pink skin nearly as red as his hair and his cheeks puffed out as if he were ready to blow up some party balloons. He was taller than Marcum and towered over Stetl-glet. He spoke some Gleezhian words that brought gentle “ahs” from the crowd and then in Klaqin he assured the rest of us that there would be peace. I hoped so because by the looks of the weapons held by six-fingered hands and the thousand-plus non-Gleezhian ships crowding the sky above, a massacre was likely. I knew what five fingers on those levers could do. They’d freeze or burn or disintegrate this entire area.

  I paused my bending; I was thinking too much and needed to save my “powers.”

  Gzeter stepped back and Stetl-glet put his hand on his shoulder. “Is it so, Gzeter, that you aimed to achieve this peace by enslaving us? By using a time-stopping ambush, facilitated by placing your time-bender and time-pacers in a purlass casing?” Stetl-glet’s voice rose in pitch as he made his accusation. So much for secrets.

  “Yes,” Gzeter proclaimed. “But for the sake of peace I passed that information on to you.”

  Stetl-glet patted Gzeter’s shoulder that he had grabbed and proclaimed to the crowd, “Yes, you did, and we captured the invaders and the poorly guarded capsule.” He swung his arm out to indicate the clear purlass shell and then the Klaqin females that were pressed against the pillars. I was positive Alex was the hairy dude closest to me, his father a few feet beyond. They stiffened and hunched over their Gleezhian weapons, their legs spread wide like surfers, well-balanced.

  “Marcum, your scientists have made a purlass capsule. I am quite aware of the work done on it. Are you?”

  Marcum stepped forward, his face switching to an expression of wariness, and spoke first in English then quickly in languages the rest would know. “I am aware. It is useless. You, oh Stetl-glet, put me in the capsule and I could not stop time.”

  “I turn your attention to this smaller pod, Marcum, guarded by your own parents.”

  With everyone’s attention diverted to the pathetic mime show still taking place within the smaller capsule, I looked at the Gleezhian guard I was positive was Alex in disguise. To double check my theory I signaled him again.

  He rubbed his nose.

  Cue the relief.

  Alex flicked his eyes toward the small capsule and gave a questioning shrug. I shrugged back.

  Stetl-glet’s booming voice continued, “Marcum, that looks like you, does it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gleezhian science is far superior to Klaqin’s pathetic works. For that doesn’t just look like you, Marcum, that is you.”

  Okay, cue the gasping crowd. Strangely no one gasped. People stayed hushed, waiting for the rest of the explanation.

  “It was not for decontamination as I told you, Marcum, it was to make two of you, one for each planet. This will keep a balance of power and insure the peace.”

  Head nodding began among the guards and spread to the Gleezhian natives, the troops and citizens, and First Commander Gzeter. Marcum looked scared and his parents were having conniptions.

  “I have decided that we will evacuate this dying world and combine our civilizations on Klaqin. Any who wish to remain here will have the protection of one of the time-stoppers. I will let the parents choose which one remains here.”

  The Marcum in the pod still pressed his hands frantically against the interior, searching, I assumed, for a crack in the element and a way out. He was unaffected by what was being said out here. Obviously we could see in, but he couldn’t see out.

  I zoomed my attention back to our capsule. I could see through it, but I knew that didn’t mean it was empty.

  “Or we
can continue to make war.” Stetl-glet drew himself up a little taller. “There is a choice to be made. You see our females and your females posted at each pillar. There will be weddings today. It is the best way to insure cooperation, loyalty and peace.”

  Totally time for us to make a move. What was the delay? I had my eye on where I was sure the entrance into our capsule was. A little diversion now would be helpful coupled with some prime time-pacing.

  I widened my eyes at Alex, flared my nostrils and twitched my fingers. I was going to have to get out of the grasp of my guards and I was hoping some quick martial arts moves Alex taught me would work.

  “Pace!” It was Mr. Rimmon’s voice and though it startled me I was ready to move. I didn’t need the martial arts stuff as my guards plunged me into the purlass entrance followed by the six others: Alex, Mr. Rimmon, and probably A.J. and Henry and two more. Once inside they stopped their pacing and urged me to bend. We went into our alternating rhythm of time gymnastics and rocked it out.

  This was going to work. I knew it. It had to; it was, as Jason had said, the last resort.

  In the frantic quadrupled pacing I watched several events take place outside the safety of our contained space: first, Earth and Klaqin ships used freezer charges to immobilize the Gleezhian air force.

  Second, the Klaqin females, easy to spot—they varied in skin colors and didn’t have a problem with excessive facial hair—used some pretty cool physical moves to knock out some hairy dudes and confiscate weapons.

  Third, everyone in disguise shed his—or her—beards, humps and robes. Mr. Rimmon, Alex, A.J. and Henry were here, as I thought. The other two were my dad and, surprise, surprise, Buddy. And another surprise: the guards that had brought me to the capsule were Renzen and Makril. Seeing them made me feel invincible. Nobody said anything though, we mutely observed the terribly bloody battles occurring at mock speed.

  Then I had to time-bend. It was easy doubling up like I’d practiced with Buddy. In the molasses slowness I saw Marcum lunge at the Gleezhian pod and stick his arms through. A smear of something like soot slid down one cheek. The figure within clasped onto him.