Open Writing

*

Deep space
November, 2515 (relative)

Two days after leaving Earth orbit, somewhere past the orbit of Pluto, the Hermes II was approaching the fabled light barrier. She had cleared the solar system some hours before; Cal had deliberately slowed their acceleration to ensure this happened before they went to lightspeed. No one knew what would result if the barrier was breached by a vessel inside a system, and Cal preferred to remain on the side of caution with what was, after all, still a new science for mankind, and not completely understood.

Cal glanced at Joe as his friend said, “Coming up on the magic number, Cal.”

The crew looked above the main viewscreen at the counter that read their velocity in miles per second, and 186,000 was coming up fast. The ship’s computer controlled their speed, of course, and they would not reach the light barrier until they were ready to do so.

The past two days had combined activity and anticipation. The solar system’s planets had flashed by without time to observe or do experiments. However, their mission on this voyage was diplomatic rather than scientific, and this time they knew exactly where they were going.

Cal glanced around the bridge at the others. “Everybody ready?”

All responses were affirmative, and Cal turned to the controls. “Okay, here we go.” He released the computer’s control and took over the ship, then advanced their speed until they hovered on the brink. In the viewscreens, space turned a murky gray, and time seemed to elongate in an endless instant. Then, with a feeling like a cork popping from a bottle, they were through and into that indistinct world of hyperspace.

Joe and Dennis had calculated the time required at lightspeed to send them across the galaxy. They would make the journey in several jumps, traveling half the time away from Earth, then returning, continually monitoring their progress to ensure there was no straying from their course. Obstacles such as star systems and the like presented no problem; in the realm in which they traveled, nothing really existed, and they passed through it unhindered, like phantoms.

Each member of the crew spent the next five days in a variety of ways. Since there were seven of them, they were together a great deal of the time; consequently, much of their off-duty time was spent in alone as the galaxy flashed by. The ship’s engines never faltered, and the Hermes II continued on its way, unaffected by the speed records she was setting almost daily.

Occasionally they got together just to talk, sometimes to play poker in Joe’s or Arnold’s cabin, or to watch old movies with Crafter. But they valued the time they spent alone, away from the responsibilities and duties connected with the ship; alone with what previously they’d not had time for.

* * * *

Joe McCulloch—wearing only a loincloth and a headband with a single eagle’s feather, body lightly oiled and glistening with sweat, his face streaked with Navajo war markings—faced his holographic opponent and took up the standard quarte-guard position. Joe’s cabin had been fitted out to resemble a cross between a Japanese dojo and a Navajo lodge, with tatami mats on the floor and rice paper screens separating the various compartments. Replicated oil lamps burned in the corners; Native American chants backed by drumbeats played faintly, holographic buffalo skins littered the floor and there was a scent of wood smoke in the air.

His adversary, generated by the ship’s computer, recorded any hits made against it, while points scored against Joe were similarly recorded. The man-shaped figure hummed with electronic life, and Joe gripped his saber lightly but firmly in the palm of his hand, holding it between thumb and forefinger, with the little finger giving support. Joe considered the saber to be the most difficult of all the swords to master, more so than the rapier, cutlass or even the ancient Japanese sword of the samurai, and he took a quiet pride in his proficiency, although of course he would never allow his pride to show.

Joe had no illusions as to why he was here; he had been Cal’s closest friend for more years than he cared to count, and would continue to be so, he hoped, until the day he died. He had elected to remain in the Air Force, moving steadily up through the levels, reaching at last the exalted rank of General when he had transferred to the Federation. Now, he had been elevated to Admiral and had his own ship, the Phoenix, which was his to command virtually any time he wished.

But Joe McCulloch, called Chief Sky Eagle by his people, had ambitions that reached far beyond that of a simple soldier. For several years, he had been nursing a secret desire to involve himself more deeply in the workings of the Federation, at a more political level. A few more years, he had decided. Get the promotions, spend a few decades at the top, put out feelers to the political people, and let them know I’m interested. They’ll jump at having a former admiral on the Federation council. Then, who knows? Maybe even the Presidency won’t be too grand an aspiration. He grinned to himself. Not bad for an Injun whose distant ancestors couldn’t even buy a drink in a bar.

His opponent made an opening thrust, followed by a cut, and Joe parried them both easily. He had programmed the computer to provide him with a difficult opponent, slightly more skilled than himself, and these were but the opening moves. Following his parries, the big Indian made several cuts and thrusts of his own, which the computer parried in copybook fashion. The computer, in theory, knew everything there was to know about the noble art of fencing, and the big Navajo put thoughts of political aspirations, for the moment, out of his mind.

He knew he would have to be very good indeed to defeat the program; still, he was confident. Not for nothing was he Federation saber champion for the last seven years, and he looked forward to an enjoyable match.

* * * *

Dennis Crafter was in his quarters watching a holographic rendering of a movie from the twentieth century, and the Englishman’s cabin resounded to gunshots, hoof beats, and the roar of engines as a famous adventuring archeologist battled the evil Nazis and the forces of darkness.

Crafter loved all the old movies, his favorites being those of his youth, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He had discs of many of them in his personal gear and he watched them often, alone in his cabin. Many an evening would find him, a pint glass of Bailey’s Best Bitter at his elbow, immersing himself in the adventures of his heroes.

A fan of the movies since boyhood, Crafter loved anything to do with films and actors, and he always championed the lone adventurer battling impossible odds. Star Wars, the Indiana Jones films, and John Wayne were his favorites, especially “The Duke” as Davy Crockett at the Alamo. He had read all about the original Hermes crewmembers, and had been thrilled to discover that the legendary Bill O’Rourke had shared his passion.

He had almost stumbled into his profession of diver, joining the Royal navy at the age of 18 and completing a PhD. at Liverpool University in, of all things, electronics, an achievement only Arnold Katzmeyer, of all the crew, knew about. He had breezed through his B.S. and his Masters, doing something he was finally good at. The mysteries of circuits and current, and the newer, more advanced science of bio-electronics, incomprehensible to so many others, were as clear as crystal to Dennis. He could look at a schematic diagram and see its answers laid out before him like a child’s building blocks.

While he was making this discovery, he found also that he had an almost supernatural talent for fixing things: anything that was broken, unless irreparably so, was putty in his hands. “Machines love me,” he’d say. “I think I must have some kind of electrical field surrounding me that machines can sense and relate to.”

When he made these comments in his slow, laid-back way, most people never knew whether he was serious or not. To foster this, he preferred to think of himself as a fix-it man, and refused to use his title. Had they known it, he would in any case never have allowed the others to call him Doctor Crafter.

But Dennis Crafter had a secret desire he’d never shared with anyone. The boy from Liverpool, who had grown up just three streets from the shrine that was the site of the ancient home of Paul McCartney, was in his most secret fantasies, a pop star.

His uncanny resemblance to the great John Lennon was something he nurtured to an enigmatic nicety. When at home, his accent was not as strong as when he left Liverpool, or the Earth. Among strangers, he poured it on, quoting “Lennonisms”, and generally having the time of his life. The small glasses he wore perched on his nose had no correction; and only Karen, ship’s doctor, knew his vision was 20/20. He even taught himself to play guitar and, although he could not sing as well as the great man—who could?—he could manage a passable impression when called upon. So, he continued his masquerade gleefully.

But Dennis heard another call, one he could not ignore. As strong as the call to show business was, even that could not compare to the galaxy with its myriad worlds and unknown adventures. And so he had left Lancashire to find his star among the countless other stars, and although occasionally he looked back with a certain nostalgic longing, he never really regretted his decision.

Three hundred years of missions as a starship navigator, co-pilot, and weapons and tactics specialist, with 50 years or so out for three stints with the SAS, occasionally had provided time for daydreams, and now he found that he had even more time to spare. He lifted the large pint glass and took a hearty pull, then settled back to enjoy the movie.

* * * *

Karen Ferguson was off duty also, and although she and Cal tried to schedule their shifts to coincide, on this occasion she was alone in the main observation lounge, located forward of the bridge and affording the ship’s best view of the way ahead. She smiled as she surveyed the cosmos stretching out infinitely before them. Not bad for a girl from Chelsea. Her marriage to Cal had experienced a few of the normal ups and downs, but their deep and abiding love for each other had pulled them through the rocky parts. Their boys, William and Jonny, both had families of their own, and it was an odd feeling to be a grandmother four times over when she still felt so young.

Her tumultuous history—first as a doctor, then not, then an astronaut and again a doctor, and finally a hero of Earth—had left her a little breathless after their return from the first mission. They still kept up their yearly pilgrimage to Oxford, and Vermont, and Nelson, to lay their wreaths, still met with Sean Driscoll, and The Redferns, and John Peel, and joined them in the remembering.

If this mission went the way she and Cal had planned it, they might miss at least one of those visits. How the mission would turn out was very much in the hands of the gods, she thought, gazing at the streaks made by stars at lightspeed. And, she wondered, if they located Jonathan successfully, what was to stop them from going further back to a time when the 10th planet was still in the solar system? And if they could do that, they might be able to save Bill O’Rourke. The problem was, could they change the past? She was sure all would be revealed when the time was right.

* * * *

Arnold Katzmeyer lay on his bunk, trying to concentrate on a diskbook of an ancient Zane Grey western, and failing totally. The glass of Jack Daniel’s sat untouched beside him, and he stared at the screen unseeing. In the bunk beside him, his wife Julia slept, her soft blonde hair temporarily loosened from its habitual bun and allowed to flow over the pillow like a golden river. Normally, Arnold would have had eyes and attention only for her, purple sage notwithstanding; instead, he was deep in thought, concerned about something that had been bothering him.

He was trying to come to terms with was the increasingly inescapable conclusion that he was not cut out for a life of leisurely retirement. Nor could he spend the rest of his long life lazing about, even in their sub-tropical paradise in Laguna, playing with their dolphins, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, while time and the universe passed them by. He was a scientist, by God. He ought to be working, not laying about like some…fop.

His main worry was: would Julia agree with his decision? Perhaps she was content with life the way it had been on Earth, and would like nothing more than to return to it when this mission was over. Certainly, she had never indicated any dissatisfaction with their life, which was why the decision he was slowly coming to was coming so slowly, despite its logic. But he knew, one way or another, he was going to have to go back to work.

He sighed and thought of Tom Stoddard. What a wonderful colleague he had been. And Jennifer, too. The loss of them in the shuttle disaster had rocked their entire group. No one was supposed to die, at least not for many more centuries. But Tom and Jennifer were always flitting off somewhere, doing something risky. He supposed it was only a matter of time, like a cat that crosses a busy road once too often.

Arnold sighed again, instructed the computer to turn off the diskbook and reached out and picked up the glass of smoky bourbon. Well, Katzmeyer, he thought, it looks like you’re going have to tell Julia sooner than you really wanted to. He picked up both glass and bottle and poured himself another large measure. I wonder how she’ll take it?

Probably have a fit, he thought, and then kick my butt all round the room.

* * * *

Cal sat cross-legged on a plain Navajo mat, his body relaxed in the classic lotus position of yoga. While a medley of tunes by his favorite band, The Eagles, played softly through hidden sound reflectors, oddly enough still called speakers by everyone except the audio engineers, he thought of the mission, and of his own reasons for agreeing to be a part of it. He also thought of his reasons for not enlisting in the Federation when it had been offered, even though Joe had. His family, he had said. He needed to spend as much time with them as possible, and jaunting off to different parts of the galaxy was not in the game plan.

He had shared perils with good friends, had saved them and had in turn been saved by them, and had lost two of them as a result. They had been as close to him as his own family, and he had missed their company. Bill, for his unswerving loyalty and rock-solid courage; Jonathan, for his serenity, his intelligence, and his total faith in his God. And Karen. Thank God for Karen.

The last notes of Best of My Love faded away, and reluctantly Cal put aside the emotional thoughts. There was a job to be done, a mission to accomplish.

Unknowingly, Cal had reached the same conclusion Karen had about the possibilities presented by this lightspeed version of time travel. If Jonathan was possible, why not Bill? The big engineer had died in a time and place that was not his own; perhaps the past would not be changed if he wasn’t in it.

The science was beyond him, just as it appeared to be for everyone else except, he hoped, Jonathan. That would be something to see, he thought, Jonathan tested to his limits. Maybe we’ll finally find out what they are, if he agrees to come back. He was pretty adamant about staying where we left him. What do we do if he says no?

Cal opened his eyes and rose smoothly to his feet. He was due on the bridge. The mission deserved his complete attention, he thought, and headed for the shower.