Fractured Worlds (Book 1 of the Fractured Worlds Trilogy)

by Alan VanMeter

14: WELCOME TO TOMORROW

  The light sphere popped like a bubble disappearing from around them. They were alone in a cathedral of a different spire. Outside the clear pointed tip it was a dark night lit only by a dim blue ring near the horizon of the planet that they were now on, and a myriad of stars. There was a bluish tint to the surrounding terrain’s dark shadows, and Tristan stepped off the pedestal to look hard into the darkness, trying to see any detail. He could only see what appeared to be dust, or even snow coating the barren landscape. Penny too, stepped down from the dark pedestal and looked around in the almost pitch black. She saw Tristan’s outline just before her, and she grabbed his arm. “Tristan, I’m scared.” She moaned.

  “I’m going to try the pedestal.” Tristan stepped back up on it, and brilliant golden light flowed around him.

  Penelope felt safe from the dark all of a sudden.

  “Come on Penny, get up on one too.” He encouraged her.

  She did, and it too washed her with light; she giggled. The lights didn’t bend to form a sphere, but Tristan still waited to hear his sister’s voice from beyond. It didn’t come though. After many minutes he got down in frustration.

  “Don’t you want to play anymore?” Penelope asked him cutely.

  “No, I don’t want to play anymore Penny. I want to go home.”

  “That’s OK Tristan, so do I.” She consoled him.

  Then she stepped down too, and it made the cathedral very dark again. He told her to stay on it for a minute so he could see if the disk was up top. She complied.

  “I don’t see it.” He said as he carefully leaned over the pitch black entrance hole.

  “What are we going to do?” She asked him with genuine fright evident in her frail little voice.

  “Maybe it’s there, but I just can’t see it.” Tristan informed her. “Hang on a second.” He swung his legs out over the opening and let them dangle. Then he turned around and tried to lower himself some, holding himself up by his arms alone.

  “Tristan!” She called out with apprehension.

  “Don’t worry.” He called back.

  A dim red light came on ringing the inside lip of the hole.

  “Whoa! This is weird.” He intoned. “Look, I can let go.” He lifted one of his arms supporting him.

  “AHHH!” Penny gasped.

  He didn’t drop at all though. “It’s kind of spongy feeling. But I’m not falling.” He pulled himself back up into the cathedral, and spun around to peer down again. Far below he could see the small red blinking light turn blue. Then the lights in the spire below began to blink on.

  “Can I get down now?” Penny asked impatiently.

  “Wait a minute, I think I see the disk coming up.”

  A moment later the lights down below flickered to full life, and he could see some structures in the base of the spire far below. “You can get down now, and come here. Look at this.” He waved her over.

  “What are those?” Penny wondered.

  They didn’t have long to observe the small structures as the rising disk soon blocked the view.

  “I don’t know, but let’s go find out.” Tristan smiled at her.

  On the ride down Tristan went over to the edge of the disk to look down, but Penelope stayed right near the center. As they got closer he could see what appeared to be three small buildings lined up close to each other, and then he could make out what looked like a living area with several large metallic like sofas and big chairs. In another area there was a large kitchen, and then another contained many crates, and boxes made from what looked like metal.

  “It looks like somebody lives here!” He exclaimed to Penelope.

  The disk settled down, and they got off. Cautiously they approached the living area with the big sofas.

  “Hello! Is anyone here?” He called out. Only his echo could be heard.

  As they entered the semi-circle of comfortable looking furniture, a gray metal box in the center made a clicking noise, followed by a hum.

  “Uh oh. I think we just set off their alarm.” Tristan moved Penny back from it.

  Then the box made a noise like a worn out tape recording.

  “Tristan, an…chzchhope.”

  “It said your name!” Penny was dumbfounded, and so was he.

  Suddenly brightly colored light emanated from the top of the box, and seemed to try form an image. Then after a moment the image congealed together and became coherent. Neither Tristan nor Penny could believe their eyes. They both blinked and rubbed them, then quickly looked at each other in disbelief. It was an image of Leena, and she was smiling at them.

  “Yes, Tristan and Penny, it really is me, or actually you’ll be seeing my hologram.” The voice was normal.

  There was his sister’s image standing, and talking right before them, but she was semi-transparent.

  The image of Leena went on talking, “I know the first thing you’re wondering right now is, how did this box with my image get here, and how did you get here?”

  “No kidding.” Tristan couldn’t help but say.

  “You better have a seat, because this is going to take a while. Oh, and this holo-program is fully interactive; so if you have any questions feel free to ask.”

  “What’s going on here?” He shouted at the image.

  “Everything in due time Tristan.” Leena told him. “First let me tell you where you are. You are on small moon of a gas giant, in a number for a name star system; in what’s known to the, uhm locals as the Photobian Galaxy.

  “Never heard of it.” He said flatly.

  “That’s because it can’t even be seen from Earth’s section of the universe.”

  “Are you really Leena?” Penelope asked earnestly.

  “I am really her image Penny. Now I have to tell you guys some bad news.” The image visibly appeared to grow serious. “It’s not so much where you are, but rather just when you are.”

  “What?” He was confused.

  “You see, the accident we had at the spire Tristan, it sent you and Penelope,” The image seemed to stutter for a second. “Well from what I’ve been told by reliable sources; you have been shifted exactly five hundred sixty two million, three hundred twelve thousand and twenty four earth years into the future.”

  “No way!” He said indignantly.

  “I’m sorry Tristan but this is the truth.”

  Penelope started to cry, and as Tristan held her to comfort her, he too started crying. Why would his sister lie to him after all? That would mean they were stuck alright. The image didn’t interrupt their bawling fit. It merely froze there with a concerned look on Leena’s face.

  After a while Tristan let go of Penny, and faced the hologram again. “How did you get here?”

  “All of this equipment was left here by us a long time ago Tristan, waiting for you two through the eons to finally arrive. This is survival equipment that you will need.”

  “Left here by ‘us’ who?” he demanded.

  “By the rest of us; William, Becky, Sarah, Joshua, and myself. Oh we had a little help too.” Leena’s image told them.

  Tristan shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible.” Penelope quickly countered.

  “Nothing could last five hundred million years and still be good.”

  “Everything we have left for you was specifically designed to with stand the ravages of time, no matter how long. Heck the spire itself will last as long as the planet does, and so will everything in it.”

  “What about food and water?” He started to become curious, and so did Penny.

  “We’ve provided three functioning replicators for you. They will function with a wide variety of inert matter, such as rocks, or other minerals; but they work best with heavy metals, of which we have left you with an abundant supply.” Leena’s image smiled at them.

  “Hey,
how did you know to do all this then? And how did you, if we’re stuck so far in the future here?”

  “Yeah!” Penelope joined in.

  There was a lengthy pause. “Ok, you’re getting right to the point I see. This is going to be hard for you to understand, but we’ve chosen not to hold anything back from you two.”

  Tristan and Penny looked at each other with trepidation.

  “We knew exactly when and where you vanished to, because it was you who came back and told us.”

  Tristan’s head itched, and twitched.

  “What’s going on here?” Penelope was getting angry. “Are you two playing some sort of trick on me?”

  “NO! This is as weird to me as it is to you Penny!” He implored.

  She eased up as she saw he was telling the truth.

  “I know it’s hard to believe guys.” The Leena hologram was telling them. “But it really is true. That’s the good news though! You make it back from the future.”

  “Both of us?” Penny asked sharply.

  “Uhm, yes. Both of you.” The way the ghostly image said it they could tell there was more to what it was saying.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Tristan got irritated.

  “It will in time, brother of mine.” The image rhymed.

  “Come on Penny,” he grabbed her hand, “let’s get out of here.”

  Tristan looked toward the top of the spire, and grew a frown. Then he looked around the exterior wall, searching for an entrance, but there was none. So the pair marched right back onto the disk.

  “You turn on this portal, or whatever it is, and let us go back home.” He waved his finger at the electronic ghost of his sister.

  “If I could, I surely would Tristan.” Leena said back.

  The disk started to rise, and he turned to Penelope. “It’s going to be OK Penny. We’re going to get back home. I promise.”

  She looked up at him with fear quite obvious in her dear little eyes.

  Almost a full hour later they came back down, feeling somewhat dejected. The hologram of Leena was patiently waiting for them.

  “Why won’t you let us go home?” he begged.

  “Like I told you Tristan, if I could I would. Whether you like it or not big brother, you and Penny are stuck here for quite a while.”

  Penelope started crying again, and she clung to Tristan. He comforted her, and took her to sit on one of the large metallic, but soft sofas. The hologram turned with them, but didn’t move from its spot over the box. After he calmed her, and himself in a few minutes, he asked the image. “You said we came back and told you, but you also said we were going to be here a long time. How long?”

  “Do you really want to know Tristan?” Leena asked.

  “Months?” he queried.

  “Yes.”

  “Years?”

  “Yes.”

  Tristan dropped his head on Penelope’s back, and tears welled up in his eyes.

  The children wept themselves to sleep for a long nap, and the image of Leena was shut off automatically when the system saw that they were sleeping. Penelope was the first to awake, and she wormed her way from Tristan’s embrace without waking him. She had to go urgently, and she looked around. The ‘bathroom’ of the spire under the stairs was at least a half a kilometer distant, so she went to one of the three small building structures near the living area. She tried the door to the one on her left, and the door opened smoothly. A light inside came on automatically, and she saw a large metallic bed centered up against one wall, some chairs, and an open closet with nothing in it. The bed had no sheets on it, just a metal seeming mattress and pillows of the same material with no cases on them.

  “Ugh.” She moaned, as that wasn’t what she needed right then. She hurriedly tried the door of the middle building, and a light came on in there automatically as well.

  “Ahh!” She breathed a sigh of relief. It was a nice large bathroom with two privacy stalls, a large tub, and a shower. She jumped into the first stall, and the commode had no toilet paper, or water in it. The bottom of the commode looked to be the same gray material as the spire’s ‘bathroom’ had. She used it with no toilet paper anyway, as nature was screaming at her.

  When she exited the bathroom, she saw that Tristan was just waking also.

  “I found the bathroom, but there’s no toilet paper or water.” Penny told him.

  “That’s OK.” Tristan said. “I’ve still got some of the TP left in my pack.” He removed his and unzipped it.

  The image of Leena blinked on again. “You’ll need to manually stock the water replicator with some material before the bathroom, or kitchen water will function. Also you can fabricate just about anything with the other replicators, including TP. There is a tutorial holo-program to teach you how to use these things, which I can run any time you like. Or you can get water from either of the spire’s ‘bathrooms’ if you feel like taking the trip to do so.”

  “That’s OK, I got some handy.” He said as he fished around in his pack, until he found the TP and tossed it to Penny. “Save some for me will you?”

  After both had finished with the bathroom call, Tristan said, “I’m feeling pretty grimy myself, I guess we’ll have to get the water going real soon.”

  Penny nodded whole heartedly.

  “Here, just watch the program, it’s really easy to learn.” Leena said.

  Her image vanished, and was replaced by a blue square. Some music came from around them, and some strange symbols appeared in the blue box. A woman’s voice came forth, a very smooth sultry voice. “Earth English translation. To prime the H2O replicator, you must first take a small amount of condensed base matter, and place it in the primary receiving port as shown. The blue box was replaced by a strange looking blue six legged creature, with several very long noses, or things like noses. It carried an object in two of its appendages, an object that looked like a ‘T’ handle. It then placed the ‘T’ handle device over a small black pellet and pushed part of the device top. “One matter pellet is enough for one thousand liters of H2O. Place the matter pellet on the receiver as shown.” The bizarre creature then turned and put the ‘T’ handle device over a red circled area on top of a box. The view zoomed in on the box until it was quite large, and the device was resting on the red circled area. One of the creature’s hands touched another part of the device top, and the image made a thudding noise. “Once the condensed base matter pellet is in place the entire system is automatic in function.” The sultry voice continued, “You only need to add more base matter when the water runs out.”

  “Cool!” Tristan’s mouth was agape.

  “Specifications not translated.” The woman’s voice concluded, and the blue box with symbols reappeared for a moment before it was replaced by Leena’s image again.

  “Any time you want to see that tutorial again, it’s named ‘Water replicator Tutorial’” Leena said.

  “OK, easy enough. Just where do I get this condensed base matter? And then just point me to the replicator.” Tristan was confident.

  Leena told him the large crates by the far right building held the majority of the matter pellets, as well as the ‘T’ handle device, and these were clearly marked. She also told him there were several pellets on top of the bathroom to get them started. This is where the replicator also was, on top of the bathroom, and there were stairs in the rear of it to access this. Tristan found quite a few crates marked ‘Condensed Base Matter’ and he looked the metal like containers over. Each was the size of a foot locker, and there was an area marked ‘push to open’ on top of each. After he pushed one there was a click and a brief noise of escaping gas. The lid popped open, and he saw the ‘T’ handle device laying on top of a sliver tray filled with hundreds of small black pellets. He glanced down past the edge of the tray, and saw the box seemed to hold many more layers of these trays with pellets.

  “Found th
em.” He reported cheerfully to Penelope. He had determined to get into a better mood for her sake, as crying each other to sleep wasn’t going to do either of them any good.

  He picked up the tool and saw it had two different colored areas on top of the handle. The labels were in English and read; ‘Engage’, and ‘Release’.

  “I wonder why they have this big old thing to pick up such small pellets.”

  Penny voiced from the living area, “Leena said they were real heavy.”

  “Yeah, but they’re so small.” He reached down to grab one of the little black pellets. “Holy mackerel!”

  “What’s wrong?” Penelope got up trying to see him.

  “I can’t budge it!”

  “What?” she asked.

  His eyes got really big. “One of these tiny little black things. Come here.”

  She hurried over to the crate and watched as he tried vainly with both hands to pick one up. She attempted to help, but the thing felt like it was welded down to her. Tristan grabbed the ‘T’ handle device and put the long end down against one of the tiny black spheres. He touched the ‘Engage’ area, and the thing hummed for a second before the background of the area around the word ‘Engage’ lit up in orange. He tried to pull it up, but it didn’t move until he put both hands on it and really tugged. It lifted the small pellet only a small distance up, but its weight pulled it right back down as he hadn’t braced himself.

  “Wow!” He said breaking a sweat. “We’ll never get this thing up the stairs!”

  “Wait! Leena said there were some already up on top, remember?” Penny told him.

  “Oh yeah.” He nodded. “We’ll have to use those. I don’t know how we’ll ever get one of these up there.”

  Leena’s image spoke to them again. “I know that it’s hard Tristan. There are going to be a lot of things, and times that are going to be extremely hard on you, but there is no one else to do it for you. All you have is each other now.”

  They went to the top of the bathroom and found only a dozen pellets up there for their use. After fifteen minutes of using every muscle both of them had, they finally got one pellet in place on the replicator. Tristan dropped to his knees with tears welling up, and Penny ran down to a sofa and buried her head in it crying.

  “I truly wish there was something I could do to change all of this.” Leena tried to console them. “But the cold hard fact is that you two are caught in a paradox, and only you can bring yourselves back.”

  “HOW?” He yelled between sobs.

  “That’s the tricky part I’m afraid. I don’t really understand it, but there is a new friend of ours that can explain it to you, with enough patience.”

  “Leena this is all just too weird!” his voice was raggedy from his fit.

  “I know. I felt the same way when you explained it all to me.” Leena told them.

  He blinked through tears. “What?”

  Penny got up facing the hologram and was whipping her face off. “What’s a pair of ducks got to do with it?”

  Tristan came back down from the bathroom roof, and joined Penny by the couch.

  The Leena hologram didn’t answer for a moment. “Oh, paradox. Like I said, I don’t understand it very well, but there is someone I want you to meet that I think you’re going to like. OK?”

  Both of the children looked at each other and nodded.

  Leena’s image disappeared and was replaced by the image of an old Chinese man. He bowed formally to them, and Penny bowed back. Tristan flopped on the couch very tired.

  The man started to speak Chinese, he made a brief statement, and then paused. The same sultry woman’s voice from the tutorial video translated, “My name is Shen Dao. It is alright if you do not wish to be polite.” He looked right at Tristan.

  Tristan became embarrassed as Penelope giggled at him. Tristan stood up and bowed to the image. The man again spoke in Chinese, and then paused for translation. “Thank you most venerable children. I have been waiting eons to meet you.” More Chinese and then the sultry woman’s voice, it was a most strange combination. “Please have a seat. Your struggle with the water is just the first of many struggles you will face.”

  The children obliged him and sat down.

  “You must pay close heed to my words, as your very lives are at stake.” Came the next translation. “Unfortunately you have become trapped in a temporal paradox. This occurred when you inadvertently activated the device which was given to you by the evil one responsible for all of this. The device was designed to unlock another spire; one on Earth. You just happened to be on a pedestal at the moment the trans-dimensional burst was released. We would not have even known where, or more importantly; when you were sent, save for the paradox.”

  Tristan remembered the device, and he felt for it in his pockets, but it wasn’t there. “I lost it!” He panicked.

  “Lost what?” Penny became nervous.

  “You should find the device right where you dropped it up in the cathedral of your spire Tristan. However, you should take care to preserve the device, and keep it safe.” The woman’s voice translated.

  Penelope relaxed some, but then asked, “I still don’t understand what a pair of ducks has to do with anything.”

  “Paradox, my dear girl.” The old man said in Chinese, and was then transformed to English by the woman’s voice. “This is the self-contradicting reality that you are the ones whom told us where to leave the survival equipment you see here and now, that will allow you to return to us, and do this very thing.”

  “This really doesn’t make any sense!” Tristan was flustered.

  “That is why it is called a paradox. This also brings us to the very real danger to yourselves. If you do not follow the prescribed events, which you yourselves have told us occur in your lives stranded here, there is a dangerously real possibility that you will not learn how to travel through time, and return to us. If that were to even start to happen, then we will not have been able to leave the provisions necessary for your survival, and you might simply die of starvation.”

  Penny clutched Tristan’s arm.

  “Or you might just cease to exist.”

  “Why can’t you just come get us?” Penny cried out.

  “Oh, my dear sweet girl.” The old man was genuinely remorseful. “We all have been dead for many millions of years by now.”

  Tristan saw the look in her eyes. “Like I’ve been asking, what do we have to do? We’ll do it!” He became impassioned.

  The Chinese man laughed a funny stuttering laugh before going on. “Do not be that conceited young man. This is by no means going to be an easy task.” The pretty voice again explained. “The first order of business is for you two to learn how to live here.”

  “Wait a minute!” Tristan was adamant. “I’ve still got a lot of questions; like what portal on Earth, and just how do we travel back in time? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do Mr. Cow.”

  Again the old man laughed. “Everything in good time my boy, everything in good time.”

  He went on to explain that the water system for the kitchen and bath would use about one pellet every five or six days if they bathed regularly. Both of their eyes lit up at this, and then he told them how important good hygiene was, and its necessity to them, as they had no medical help. They grumbled about this, and how heavy the pellets were. Shen Dao smiled at them, and told them it was to make them strong and healthy. They could have installed a completely automated system, but that wouldn’t have been as beneficial, besides that is what they themselves told them they’d had to do. He also explained the use of the other material replicator to them.

  This one was to make solid items with, but not very complex ones. An awful lot of things were going to have to be built out of parts, which meant they would have to learn how to build things before they could use them. They had unlimited power from the same source as the spire itself, and unlimit
ed cold water from the spire, but if they wanted hot water they would have to use the replicator, or boil water they had carried. The kitchen was well equipped with everything but food, and that the replicators could produce only the most basic nutritional substance which had almost no taste, but if they were to follow his precise instructions that they would be eating very well, eventually.

  The old man also said that although they were safe from intruders in the spire, they were still going to have to start training for self-defense; martial arts training to be exact. Tristan liked the sound of that, but Penny was much more interested when he told them of their needed schooling in many other arts as well; like painting, poetry, calligraphy, and music.

  Tristan asked why they would have to learn all that junk, and Shen Dao told him that was what made a really great warrior. Not the ability to destroy, but rather the ability to create. Penny stuck her tongue out at Tristan for that. Then Shen Dao assured her she would also have to learn how to fight.

  “Why?” She asked. “You said we are safe here in the spire, but then you say we are in great danger too.”

  Shen Dao laughed some more, and then spoke rapidly in Chinese.

  “You are in danger from within, not from without.” The smooth female voice said.

  After all this the children got tired of the old man’s lecture and demanded to speak with Leena again.

  Penelope didn’t understand, nor did she wish to try to. “Let me talk to Leena again.” She demanded.

  “Yeah!” Tristan charged too.

  The old man smiled and bowed, and then he blinked away.

  Leena blinked on and smiled at them.

  “Why won’t you just let us go home now?” Penelope cried out.

  “You’re a long way from home Penny.” Leena replied somberly.

  Tristan jumped in, “Can’t we go back to Earth right now, in this time? There has to be people there that can help us figure all this out.”

  “If you’ll think back Tristan, you need three people, uhm humans, to turn on the portal. Besides we don’t even know if Earth still exists, or mankind for that matter; five hundred million years from when you last knew it.” Leena was patient.

  Tristan realized he was hungry, so he went through his pack. Penny saw this and went through hers as well, as she was too. Between them they only had several handfuls of the red, and purple berries left; and then four snack rations from the Dreamland provisions. They each ate some of the fruit, and then shared one of the packets, realizing they should ration. Leena assured them they would not starve as the replicator would produce nutritional substance; however if they listened to Shen Dao, and that if they followed his instructions they would be growing their own food in time.

  The two children were rebellious however, and refused to listen to him again.

  “How many of you are there in there?” Tristan asked rudely.

  “There is just Shen Dao and myself. We transferred part of our personalities into the program. There are messages from William, Becky, Joshua, and Sarah though. I can play them for you any time you want.”

  They decided to play the messages from their friends. It quickly brought both of them to tears as they listened to their friends reach across time to them. Each implored them to listen to Shen Dao, but they didn’t want to hear that; so they told the imaging machine to turn off for a while, and it complied.

  By the end of the second day, the kids had eaten all the food in their packs, and the next morning time Tristan had to wrestle with an extremely heavy pellet again, but this time for the material replicator. The nutritional substance it produced was far from what either of them would call food. It was a gray gelatinous goop which really had no taste or real texture to it, but it did stave off the hunger pains. By mid- afternoon time Tristan had come up with a saying about it.

  “Gray goop will make a poop, but that’s about all it’s good for.”

  Penny laughed at that.

  The next day their water ran out, and both Tristan and Penelope struggled to put another pellet in the water replicator. Then as she took one of her hour long baths where she filled the tub several times with fresh hot water, Tristan talked to his sister in the living room.

  “I’ve been thinking.” He said. “There are an awful lot of those pellets in those crates. Just how long are we going to be here?”

  “I already told you it would be years Tristan.” Leena answered.

  “How many exactly?” He demanded.

  “Fifteen years Tristan.” Leena spoke flatly.

  “Holy smokes!” It took the breath right out of him. It was a prison sentence, and it might as well be life he thought.

  Tristan was in one of the beds sobbing when Penny came out from the bath. She went in and asked him what was wrong, but he told her to get out. She didn’t listen though; instead she snuggled up beside him, as there was no way she was going to be left alone.

  The rest of the first week was a bad one for them, as they flatly refused to talk to, or listen to Shen Dao. Instead self-pity set in. They made many things with the material replicator, sheets, pillow cases, blankets, towels, dishes, and toys. The children had the ease of an automatic dishwasher, and a washing machine, but found that even the washable items could be disintegrated on the disposal pad beneath the sink, or even in the toilets. Making more of them was as easy as pushing a button, as long as enough matter was in the replicator.

  This ease of living, and their despair led them into a state of despondence, and decadence. Pretty soon they even stopped disintegrating the dishes, and towels. They didn’t care when they ate, as it was always just the same sloppy gray mess anyhow. And the less they bathed; the fewer pellets they had to load into the water replicator. To heck with that old Chinese man, forcing them to carry so much weight, and for nothing. They didn’t see any dangers, until the third week that is.

  Tristan noticed it first, when he awoke that fateful day. Everything seemed lighter somehow, except his head.

  “Penny, do you feel weird too?” He asked.

  She was groggy. “Yeah, I don’t feel right.”

  “Everything looks different, and I’m starting to get a real bad head ache.”

  Penelope frowned. “Me too!”

  “Leena!” He called out.

  There was no image this morning, answering them from the living room.

  “Owww!” Penny yelped, and Tristan moaned too.

  The bedroom walls seemed very light, and then almost transparent. He got dizzy as he looked through the door to the always lighted interior of the spire.

  “Leena help!”

  Things got lighter still, and he started to forget where he was, and what was going on. Right then he snapped as to what was happening to them. It was just like the old man had said; they were dying.

  “Leena! Shen Dao!” Tristan yelled. “Penny you’ve got to call Shen Dao! Shen Dao!”

  “Shen Dao!” She too called out.

  The world seemed to whirl around them.

  “We’ve got to mean it Penny! We’ve got to do as he says. Call him!”

  “Shen Dao!”

  He looked at his arm as he reached for the doorway; it was far too pale, completely devoid of color.

  Just as Tristan thought he could feel his life slipping away from him, he saw with perfect clarity what Shen Dao had meant by your dangers are from within. The next moment, everything looked normal again, except for Penelope’s face that is. It was pale and devoid of all color, and Tristan realized that he must look the same way.

  “Are you OK?” He asked her with care.

  Penny struggled to focus on him. “We almost died just then, didn’t we Tristan?”

  He nodded, “We’ve got to do what Leena and the others said. We must let Shen Dao teach us.”

  “You’re right. No matter how hard it gets.” She added.

  He had to agree, as he never wanted t
o feel that way again.

  “We were just going to die right there weren’t we Tristan?”

  “Uh huh, it sure felt like it.” He rubbed his face, and saw color returning to Penny’s.

  They both went quickly into the living area and called for Shen Dao, he appeared right away.

  “We see what you were trying to tell us. We must train with you, so someday we can return.” Tristan told.

  “So you understand that you almost caused your own deaths by your inaction?”

  Both of them in unison replied, “Yes Shen Dao.”

  “Now you have to realize that you must allow me to take full control of your upbringing, so that you may complete your destiny.”

  “Yes we do She Dao.” They both cracked a little smile, as it was hard to be properly respectful to the sultry voice translating.

  “Good, first thing is morning routine. Let’s see it is morning time now, what a coincidence! We can start right away. First are warm up exercises, then stretching.” The old man led them through an exhausting set of exercises, and some pretty bizarre ones too. Then he had them stretch themselves in every which way possible it seemed.

  “I still don’t see what this has to do with us time travelling back home.” Tristan grunted between breaths.

  “You will.” Shen Dao said.

  From that day on the two children were tired almost all the time. The old master had set a grueling schedule for them; six hours a day for exercise and practice, and six hours for a myriad of chores. Play time was precious, and restricted to their one day off. At first they complained that he was pushing them too hard, but all he would have to do is remind them of the alternative.

  One of the first chores was to make preparations for a large garden to grow some real food in. There were plenty of deep containers that only lacked soil, and though the replicator could make a neutral medium, it could not produce the micro- organisms needed. Thus they had to mix the medium with some of a nutritional substance similar to their food, and they had to add the micro-organisms themselves; by mixing some of their own poop into it.

  At first this idea seemed very wrong to the kids, but he explained that only a little was needed for each large container, just to get the natural system started. An area behind the bedroom and bathroom buildings was designated for the garden, and as Shen Dao demonstrated; the spire lighting had been adjusted to be much more intense in this area as needed.

  “OK.” Tristan told him one day soon after they’d started. “Just what are we going to grow here? I am assuming you packed some seeds in the crates, but won’t they be dead after so long?”

  “That is very good reasoning Tristan.” The old man said. “Yes we have seeds for you to use. They are in the crate labeled ‘Caution’, and do be careful opening it. There is a stasis field protecting the seeds, and it will take a few moments for it to de-activate once the crate is opened. Do not touch the silvery field protecting the contents, or you could be killed.”

  “What’s a stasis field?” Penny wondered.

  “It is an area of almost frozen time.” The sultry smooth voice translated the explanation.

  She frowned, “You mean you could have frozen other things for us too? Like a puppy dog!”

  The old man laughed, “No my dear. Anything living thing that is frozen in a stasis field has a chance of not being living when the field is removed. So not all of the seeds stored will be viable, but many will be.”

  “So you could have frozen a puppy for us!” She demanded.

  “Or it could have come out a dead puppy.” Tristan explained.

  Penelope then understood, “Oh, I guess not.”

  “Well, when do we start planting Shen Dao? I know we’re both getting tired of the replicator slop.” Tristan asked expectantly.

  “Very soon my boy. You need to give the micro-organisms time to spread.” He answered.

  They exercised hard, and then worked hard; following all of the old man’s instructions. He had them perform deep tiring stances for the next several weeks, but gave them just enough rest and water breaks. One thing they didn’t mind so much, was that he made them skip lunch every day, explaining that they needed to get used to their stomachs being empty for a little while. They did not miss the gray slop, but the feeling of emptiness wasn’t something they liked at all. This made the old man laugh.

  At night time after they ate and bathed; he would tell them stories of the spires, and what had happened.

  Shen Dao was half man, half Pearmainian. This was a symbiotic being, and a nearly immortal one. His Pearmainian half was countless eons in age, but his human half was only just over three thousand years old. This was possible due to the unique symbiotic relationship between the races. A Pearmainian would usually prefer to find a willing donor, but it could just take over a body as well. Shen Dao’s human half was a Taoist monk, born in the northern Hubei province in China around one thousand BC, western time. He had spent a good portion of his life as a destitute renunciate of the ways of man.

  When he was middle aged he was approached by a strange alien creature that was the host to the Pearmainian before he was. It had occurred late one night while he meditated in a cave. The being walked right up to him and sat down. He thought he was having a revelation at first, and indeed he was.

  The alien explained in perfect Chinese that there was an intergalactic war going on, and that he was needed by its parasite as a host body. At first he was repulsed by the very thought of such a thing, but then the being explained the virtues of the exchange. Barring any nasty accidents, his life would be extended at least a hundred fold. Here was just what he was looking for, he thought; ‘immortality.’ Shen Dao asked why the alien had to give up the parasite, and it said that it was over ten thousand Earth years of age, and was quite ready to die. So Shen Dao had agreed and took the Pearmainian parasite into his body willingly.

  The intergalactic war that had been fought, and presumably won, was a civil war between the Pearmainians themselves. There was only one solitary Pearmainian rebel that had been the cause of the last war, but it had enlisted the help of a rather nasty race of warrior apes. They wreaked havoc wherever they went. Their sole purpose was the complete annihilation of the Pearmainian High Council, known as ‘The Eternal Guard’. They almost succeeded too, if it hadn’t been for the concerted efforts of many; including a number of mortal humans. He told them of how they had laid a trap for the rebel, and its elite warriors; on Earth. The rebel knew the High Council had a keen interest in humanity, and as such she followed the last remnants of ‘The Eternal Guard’ to Earth to finish them off. With some very brave humans helping the Guardians, the rebel gave chase to the fleeing group thinking they were the remnants of the High Council, but they were actually those very selfless and brave humans merely being led by one of ‘The Eternal Guard’. This was so the rebel would sense the Pearmainian and fall for the ruse. It had worked, and as soon as they were a safe distance away from the spire, all that remained of the Council shifted back to Earth; as they had at first shifted past unknowingly to those in pursuit. They had caused the spire to bury itself, and shifted off planet just before this occurred. A lockout was put in place de-activating the spire on Earth, and thus the rebel and its cohort were trapped.

  “So you stuck them there on Earth with us, huh?” Tristan grew a scowl.

  Shen Dao bowed, and grunted. The translator said, “Sorry.”

  “What happened to the people who were the bait?” Penny asked.

  Shen Dao shook his head, “They were slaughtered by the rebel. They gave their very lives for this cause.”

  “That’s just great!” Tristan exclaimed. “You and your intergalactic war got us stuck half way across the Universe.”

  “Don’t forget; five hundred million years into the future too.” Penelope quipped.

  Tristan didn’t laugh. “Why didn�
�t you just kill the rebel? Like any other government would do.”

  “My human half has often suggested the same, but that is what is wrong with the rebel in the first place. It doesn’t mind killing. She and her warrior minions even like it. Besides, just the thought of killing a fellow Pearmainian is quite impossible for us. That is contrary to our most basic nature.”

  All were quite for a moment.

  “Are we going to have to kill anyone?” Penelope asked with her tender voice obviously worried.

  “I don’t know.” Shen Dao answered honestly.