The Time Ender

by Debra Chapoton

  ***

  MARCUM HAD FELT a building hysteria quiver under his skin like a river of purlass. He’d caught the movement of two small Gleezhian guards thrusting Selina toward what he believed at first was the imitation capsule. She disappeared into its invisible safety and he knew they’d succeeded in switching capsules. He was glad she wasn’t in the clear decoy, the one Stetl-glet had made him enter as soon as they had captured it. He’d had to pretend to fail at stopping time, though it would have been an easy maneuver in the plain glass capsule. All part of the bigger plan though. One that needed to be adjusted now that he realized Stetl-glet—Tratl—couldn’t be trusted.

  A wave of relief came with the sudden shift in time and he transferred his attention to his parents and the unbelievable presence of himself in the chelurium pod.

  He’d long been used to functioning in Coreg’s time-pacing though the current pressure from multiple pacers was excessive. He rushed to the pod and stuck his hands through the astonishing element the moment the pacing stopped and the bending began. He shook his head as though wanting to dislodge pesky Earth mosquitos from his ears, then felt the clutching fingers of strong Klaqin hands—his own. And behind him protective hands grabbed him around the waist. The buzzing in his ears increased. The burning he’d endured from the chelurium the first time was more like icy pricks now. Strips of light followed his arms into the pod, momentarily changing the blackness to gray. He could see his own face as if through a distorted Earth mirror. The eyes of the pale face—his eyes—did not look directly back. The mouth grimaced in perfect reflection though. As hard as he tried to pull the inner Marcum out, that brave figure pulled the outer Marcum inward with equal intensity.

  The actions around him faded in and out as if they were vague perceptions: his parents tugging at him and pleading, the ships above firing freezer charges, people running, shooting, screaming. All the movements seemed grotesque and hazy as the time-pacing/bending team alternated their skills. He ignored the mayhem surrounding him. When the pacing rotated again to Selina’s slow bending, slower than anything he’d experienced before, he allowed himself to give way to the inner Marcum.

  Slipping out of his parents’ grasp, he kicked back against his father’s thighs. His head pitched through the chelurium and into blackness, hitting hard against his own, other, forehead. The rest of his body followed.

  ***

  I DIDN’T MEAN to scream when I saw Marcum’s parents fall backwards and Marcum’s body disappear into the Gleezhian pod. But I did scream. And I hiccupped. Buddy kept the sluggishness simmering but in the short interval until I resumed my bending I swear I saw Marcum bump heads with himself in the transparent ball. But then the thing went totally black like an eclipse. The pod looked like Buddy’s magic eight ball, only huge.

  Small fingers of apprehension tickled briskly through my midsection. What would happen to Marcum? Eight ball’s answer: outlook not so good.

  Time to switch skills. Buddy and I released the bending and the four pacers resumed. What we saw outside became increasingly twisted and warped. The red dust bloomed downward from the sky and bodies fell upward toward open hatches.

  I knew we were invisible from the outside—our capsule was clear—but a storm of Gleezhian soldiers encircled the capsule and began searching for the entrance, unaffected by the heaving of the land. Blasts from several weapons did no damage, but I combined hyperventilation and hiccups when the soldiers gave up and went to poke at Marcum’s black eight ball.

  “Did you guys see that?” I repeated it three or four more times because it didn’t register on my own ears let alone on the guys or Renzen or Makril. I didn’t think they were ignoring me, it was just that there was so much to take in as well as focus on time manipulation.

  “See what?” Alex finally said. “You mean the red and black explosion? That was the crater. I hope Coreg got out of there.”

  A.J. popped up with, “I saw the pod go black when Marcum touched it. He’s behind it, I think.”

  “No,” I answered, “he went into the pod.”

  “I wonder what that’ll do to him. Okay, stop the pacing. Buddy and Selina, you two bend again.” In infinitely slower syllables he added, “That thing’s made of chelurium. Could be deadly if he got inside.”

  Deadly? Like everything else going on out there wasn’t fatal? At least nobody was targeting the females who didn’t take up weapons, but bodies were piling up, ships were falling from the sky, pillars were toppling and the red dust was obscuring more and more of the carnage.

  Buddy’s fingers tapped his knees in uncontrolled spasms. I reached over and took his hand, smiled and gave him the same words of encouragement I used to. He was so much bigger than the little, lisping kid I left, but he smiled back and said, “I ate your chocolate stash.”

  I attempted a laugh and squeezed his hand. “I wish you’d brought some with you.”

  I glanced at Alex and he wiggled his eyebrows at me. Behind him and outside of the capsule lurked a hooded fighter, a shock of white-blond hair visible at the temple. I must have made a face because Alex twirled to look.

  “Coreg’s here. Just in time. A fifth pacer should put us at a greater advantage. Too bad we don’t have a third time-bender.”

  “Or a time-stopper,” I mumbled as Coreg found the entrance. He came through the purlass as if he’d practiced the move, which he couldn’t have, I was fairly sure.

  He stood there haughty and arrogant as ever and dared to give us some advice as he whipped his hood off. “If you’re going to oscillate the time like that you should vary the intervals more. I had to fight my way here and every Gleezhian I encountered adjusted to the time as easily as he managed the shifts and quakes in the ground.”

  “Couldn’t be too bad if you made it here,” Alex barked at him. Mr. Rimmon reached a hand out to him then pulled it back.

  Coreg gave him a throaty growl. “Easier than bridge battles. Where’s Marcum? This whole war hinges on him doing a time stoppage.”

  Henry pointed and said, “A.J. thinks he’s behind that black pod. Selina says she saw him go into it. The pod’s made of chelurium. If you didn’t hear, the prince claims he made a clone of Marcum by putting him in it and pulling him out, probably in the midst of a time stoppage.”

  “We have to get him out of there. One of him anyway.” He looked at the five guys and ignored me and the girls. “When these two do the next time-bending we need to blast him out of that thing.”

  “With what?” Mr. Rimmon said. “I’ve watched dozens of Gleezhian soldiers take aim at it and fail to chip off any of that stuff. Lasers and beams and blasts gets absorbed by our purlass, but that chelurium repels everything. Everything, that is, except human flesh.”

  Coreg made a loud clucking sound. “Stop the pacing.” He snapped his fingers against Buddy’s back. “You, do a time-bend with your sister. I need a moment to remember something.”

  The switch from pacing to bending was not as smooth as we’d been doing, but once into the bending I used the time to ignore the chaos outside and stared instead at Alex. I rubbed my nose and he smiled at me. I hoped that meant all was forgiven. I mouthed to him: I didn’t marry Marcum. And he mouthed back: I know. And he rubbed his nose real slow.

  “Got it,” Coreg said. “We’ll do a five-man time-pace, but the seven of us will leave this capsule and surround the pod. Renzen and Makril, you two guard the entrance. We’ll each need a handful of purlass so on your exit work a bit off the edge that expands and contracts for the opening. It should liquify into strings and pull off easily. Keep a weapon blasting until we get around the pod then plunge your hand into the chelurium about this high up.” He indicated his waist so it’d be a little higher for me. “Release the purlass and jump back. Chelurium and purlass don’t mix. The pod should break in half like a—”

  “—like an egg,” Henry said. “How do you know those two elements won’t mix? Each is only found on its own planet.”

  “I was once in the Pletori,
a subterranean warehouse on Klaqin, where secrets are stored. I saw a sample of chelurium—should have stolen it. The box was marked “do not mix with purlass” and I can only think of one reason not to mix them.”

  ***

  AT FIRST MARCUM couldn’t see or hear a thing, but his sense of touch was not impaired. His forehead ached from when he had banged against an entity, warm and hard. Hands gripped his and he was still holding onto someone, someone trapped as he now was.

  Neither let go. He feared then grieved for the other being. Was it really himself? He wanted to lift a finger to the hidden face and compare the lines of jaw and chin and nose, but he could not bear to release his clasp and he knew intuitively that his other self would keep a fearless hold on him—a supposed unseen foe.

  He tried to speak. Words formed in his head and mouth and his vocal cords vibrated, but nothing reached his own ears. If he could not communicate and he could not let go, his best option was to move closer to the self that held him.

  The pod was a howling vacuum, where sound and silence battered him, pulsing through his body, separating and reuniting each cell. He was absolutely blind, yet blind with the brightness of looking into Klaqin’s sun. He felt the impact of a body. Or a ghost. Softs things brushed past like the shed fur of a xanx or a weediq. Something harder tore through his skin to collide with his bones. There was a constant sense of screaming.

  Had time stopped in here? Was he doing it or was the other self commanding a stoppage?

  Or, worse, perhaps the stoppage had never ended inside this pod. He had burst through the edge of time-stoppage and doomed himself.

  Did it matter? He knew the peace treaty was never going to succeed. The war outside would be final. Victory or defeat. Waves of death and destruction would annihilate all or most of the Gleezhians. Win or lose it would be the Klaqins’ final fight.

  Yes, time was stopped inside the pod. He felt himself growing stronger, braver and full with courage. And something else. It was either love or healing.

  The grip on his arms diminished and he lifted his own hands free of the invisible figure just as a tiny shaft of red light poked through to his right. Fingers appeared dripping with purlass. More hands, more fingers, more purlass. The rays of light expanded and he grabbed at one gloved hand. It slipped away. The light receded. Fast, so fast. Time was moving again.

  His ears burned with the sounds of breathing. It was his own. He was panting and groaning and maybe crying. The face that mirrored his reflected a wet shine in the eyes and made his heart beat in fear first and then sadness.

  He ceased the dueling howls and concentrated on other sounds: voices, blasts, rumblings. The war outside the pod was frenzied, but nearby voices were friendly ones. In Klaqin. And English: “Come on.” “Let this work.”

  A quiet seam of light worked its way around the pod, splitting the sides horizontally and melting downward. The top of the pod crunched down upon his head and he lifted his hands up, silently urging his other self to help as he pushed.

  ***

  COREG STUCK HIS hand in first, then Mr. Rimmon and Alex. I followed next, then Buddy, and lastly the brothers. We were evenly spaced around the pod and didn’t have to do too much defensive shooting. The battles had moved beyond the pillars and down two tiers. There was a lot of, for lack of better words, gruesome litter everywhere. Klaqins were winning. Definitely.

  I released my glob of purlass and drew my hand out. I didn’t know what to expect, but I jumped back as instructed and watched through my front flap which Alex insisted I use for protection.

  There was a sizzling meat sound which considering all the noise from the battles was pretty loud. Something smelled like a campfire, but there were no plumes of smoke, no sparks or flames, no evidence that the purlass was doing its damage to the chelurium. Maybe Coreg was wrong.

  Then the top of the pod crumbled down on itself, but inexplicably raised back up.

  All of a sudden I saw a single pair of legs as the chelurium melted into the heaving ground. A dark figure pushed the top of the pod up and over, like a chick hatching. It was Marcum and there was only one of him, eyes dark, cheeks smudged and reddish stains around his wrists.

  Coreg, taking charge, ordered the time-manipulating to stop, but it already had. It was stomach-churning to experience Gleezhian time, gravity, and land-lurching all at once, but I grabbed onto Alex and he put his arm around me with no hesitation.

  Marcum stepped over the melting edges of the pod and Coreg said to him, “Marcum, do a stoppage now. Planet wide.”

  They stared at one another and Coreg repeated his command. A ship spiraled out of the sky and exploded. Not a Parallaxer. Good. Another enemy ship plummeted to Gleezhe. Double good. The ground battling tapered off and I wondered for a second if everyone was pausing to wait for Marcum to stop time. Violence and galactic savagery both yielded to that soft, patient authority that Marcum held.

  A ghostly sense of imminent danger rose up around us, and the busy sky unfurled itself with layers of ships swooping like bats, silent and sunlit, but not peaceful. We’d given our side an advantage and they were amping up for a decisive battle.

  A shattering cry sounded near us, so close that I jerked, heart pounding. I feared the hand-to-hand combat would reach us any second.

  “Ehk. I can’t,” Marcum said. His voice cracked in the scorched air. He blinked at Coreg, then looked at each of us. I wasn’t time-bending, but the moment ticked by supernaturally slow with dozens of explosions above. He stared at me, his face changing from his usual puppy dog devotion to an expression of regret. Whatever infatuation or connection that had repeatedly pulsed between us was gone. The vision of our kiss evaporated. He was different; so was I.

  “Better pace or something,” I whispered to Alex.

  We locked eyes and I could tell Alex’s and my feelings for each other were as strong as ever. No change there and yet some part of our relationship was different. Our dependence on each other felt equal. Strong. Undivided.

  A normal beat of time passed and he said, “I can’t.”

  “Me neither,” A.J. and Henry echoed.

  I tried and failed to bend. Buddy shook his head. Mr. Rimmon furrowed his brow and looked away. The sounds of the space battles above dwindled.

  “I can’t stop time, Coreg,” Marcum said again. “Can you pace?”

  Coreg said some pretty awful Klaqin words. I guess he couldn’t pace anymore either.

  “It was the chelurium.” I said. Cue the light bulb.

  Coreg drew a deep breath and so did I, through my nose, then I snorted, trying to get rid of the putrid smell of death. Charred skin, melted bio-clothes, sweat, blood, urine … all blended with that oily galactic lard.

  The ground heaved once more and then stopped its shuddering. An Intimidator fell from heaven then pulled up hard at the last instant, sending red dust high toward us. It landed close on the crest, smashing flat whoever had been fighting there.

  More ships landed and Earth men and Klaqin commanders stepped out in silent victory. A peculiar elation spread among us, tinged by the desolation, and yet quite jubilant as we realized the war was truly over. Those from Earth began to shout and whistle their excitement. The Klaqins kept their hush for a brief moment longer then their tongues joined in triumphant clucks and exultation.

  CHAPTER 21

  #Epilogue

  DEAR MOM,

  DON’T worry, I’ll be home eventually. I’m sending this letter with Buddy who didn’t want to go until Mr. Rimmon convinced him that he had a better chance of regaining his time powers on Earth, his home planet. Mr. Rimmon is showing improvement here on Klaqin and can time-pace in spurts, but I think that’s because he was the only one wearing gloves when we touched the chelurium.

  Buddy’s going to need some professional help and not just for the burns. He’s pretty messed up from seeing all the dead bodies and touching them. We had to help load them into the spaceships’ processors, so that was pretty traumatic. Actually we le
ft the Gleezhian casualties were they lay, but the Klaqin ones had one more act of service owing to the fact that the galactic lard was seriously low after all the battles. Gross, right?

  I’m glad you left before the worst strikes happened on Klaqin. I was surprised to find out that Uncle Merlig arranged to get you and the others off the planet and on your way. I’ll bet it was a long trip without a time-pacer.

  When we got back to Klaqin and saw the devastation it looked a lot like what happened on Gleezhe. I had no idea they were doing the “divide and conquer” thing, but the advantage went to Klaqin in the end.

  We—Klaqin—lost a lot of leaders, some bad ones like Gzeter and some good ones like Vokil and Taw. And a lot of young commanders, friends of Marcum and Coreg, died. Alex knew a couple of them, Payat and Hagab, who flew Parallaxers over Gleezhe. Then the biggest shock was when we got Marcum out of something called a chelurium pod—I’ll explain when I get home—and after that an Intimidator spaceship swooped in and landed on the royal prince of Gleezhe. I think it was accidental, but dead is dead. The pilot who killed him was a kid named Rander and he’s Alex’s cousin. Rander is one of the rare ones left who can time-pace, but not very reliably. Anyway, he’s willing to come to Earth, so if he paces us there I could be back before you finish reading this.

  As for Marcum, he’s gone to work permanently on his parents’ food production enterprise, but he was the hero of the whole peace/war thing. When we won on Gleezhe there were a few Gleezhians still alive, but they were ready to bow down to Marcum. He had friends among the guards and word spread quickly to do whatever Marcum commanded. I have to say Marcum was incredibly compassionate with the survivors. He arranged to have enough food sent back with the Gleezhian refugees from Klaqin to sustain the population for the rest of their lives on Gleezhe. Of course, without any children their race is doomed, but Marcum promised if he got his time-stopping power back he’d return and help with that.